BaseWords is the writing division of Base. We write anything from commercial copy to essays and stories, grocery lists, and emails to friends and family. Each Wednesday we try to post some of our work on BaseNow. In this week’s installment we dish out some helpful pointers on mold.
There are many different types of molds that can grow in your home. They can grow on any number of things and in any number of places—sometimes where you least expect them! This week’s column will focus on a few of these little (micro)organisms we call molds.
As I mentioned above, molds can grow on any number of things and in any number of places—sometimes where you least expect them! One of those places is on cheese. This dairy product, if not eaten by or around its expiration date, can grow some quite colorful molds. Different types of cheese foster different varieties of mold according to their ingredients, I think. Sometimes, as with Roquefort, Gorgonzola, Stilton, and other blue (or bleu) cheeses, these molds are desirable. But not always! If your cheese is blue and isn’t supposed to be, you probably have an undesirable mold on your hands. Or on your cheese, I should say! LOL! But wait—don’t throw it out! You’d be wasting cheese. You see, even if a cheese is totally covered in revolting wooly green and blue mold, there is still unaffected cheese underneath. Simply cut away and discard the moldy exterior, et voilà! You’re ready to eat cheese!
Blue cheeses often smell like foot odor, ironically perhaps because of the very mold that makes them so tasty. Active feet can harbor organisms related to molds—fungi—resulting in a common condition known as athlete’s foot. The matter is made even more confusing by another offputting stinkable also often associated with foot odor—toe cheese. This misleadingly named substance is neither cheese nor mold, but something entirely else that modern science has yet to fully comprehend. However logical this three-way relationship may seem on the surface, don’t be fooled! These coincidences are merely coincidental. There is no direct correlation between toe cheese, blue cheese, and foot, apart from the fact that toe cheese, not surprisingly, smells like foot odor, which also happens to smell like blue cheese. Don’t try to understand it, just accept it as one of life’s little mysteries.
Now that that’s cleared up, another foodstuff that harbors mold is something that many people put cheese on—bread. This family of molds is extremely gross. Unlike cheese, when bread starts getting moldy, you probably want to just throw it away. At least if you’re not toasting it. When disturbed, bread molds often send out a puff of spores. That’s one way these little colonists proliferate. It’s bad enough reaching for some bread to make a sandwich, only to find that it has gone moldy, but when you get a face full of spores to boot, that’s a real double whammy!
But seriously, bread molds can be a dangerous, dangerous drug. It has been hypothesized that the famous 16th century proto-Surrealist painter Hieronymus Bosch may have been influenced by a hallucinogenic medieval bread mold called ergot. And from looking at his paintings, that guy must have been tripping balls.
The blue-green mold found in blue cheeses and on breads is called penicillium. Sound familiar? If you said, “Yes, that does sound familiar,” it’s probably because you’ve heard of penicillin—the mold-derived medicine you take when you’ve got a bacterial infection. The concentration of penicillin in these molds is much lower than in pharmaceutical penicillin, which is why you don’t need a prescription for blue cheese. So, if you’re feeling sick and want to save a trip to the doctor and pharmacy, don’t go out and eat a bunch of Roquefort and moldy bread; you’ll probably end up feeling sicker! But if you’ve got a hankering for a savory, over-the-counter snack that’s also nutritious, some bread (non-moldy) and cheese can be just what the doctor ordered!
Mildews comprise another group of molds—mildews. Mildew prospers in dark, damp, poorly ventilated areas like—you guessed it—the bathroom. Bathroom molds are among the most repulsive of the entire mold family. Like bread molds, bathroom molds should not be eaten. While varying in appearance, these molds are easy to identify. If you see a mold growing in your bathroom, chances are it’s a bathroom mold. Unless, perhaps, it’s on some cheese or bread you left in there. Bathroom molds are usually brown or black. One time, though, I saw an orange one. It’s a long story. Basically, my tub clogged, so I plungered it and all this disgusting brackish backflow seeped up into the tub from the drain, with these orange chunks of fungal bloom in there. I almost vomited.
But this is an extreme mold situation that the layman rarely encounters. Fortunately I have a lot of experience with molds and was able to dispatch the offending nauseant with a few shots of ordinary household bleach. Bleach does to molds what salt does to slugs, or what kryptonite does to Superman. So keep some bleach around just in case; you never know when a bathroom mold will strike.
As you can see, we live in a moldy old world. Just as there are many types and colors of people on this big marble we call Earth, there are many types and colors of mold. Unlike people, some are poisonous. Some ruin books or linens that have gotten wet and not dried properly. Some make people sneeze. Some are delicious. It’s easy not to feel respect or compassion for molds, as they aren’t traditionally beautiful, and don’t have eyes or a brain or make a squealing sound when you kill them. But in the end, molds are just like you and me: living things, here for a short while, programmed to try to live the best life they can.
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waw…I dind’t know what salt does to slugs.
Thank you