to a generation which had suffered from five years of wartime food and rationing and could barely remember what it had been like to have unlimited butter, cream, oranges, lemons, sugar, jam, meat, not to mention wine and olive oil, the cheese at the end of a meal was an irrelevance. The point was first to make sure you had the wherewithal to prepare a meal, then you could start worrying about whether or not it would be complete without three or four ounces of cheese.

David, Elizabeth, Book of Mediterranean Food, loc. 50