Unless you’re lactose-intolerant, the chances are that you like cheese. And when better to enjoy it than during a week when we celebrate National Cheese Day? Nobody can agree on when, how, or why this great excuse for indulging in Cheddar, Swiss, and Gouda came about, but the farmers of America’s Dairyland, our neighbors to the north in Wisconsin, are probably not complaining.

This week, the annual National Day of Norway (Nasjonaldagen) commemorates the anniversary of the country’s adoption of its constitution in 1814; the locals refer to it simply as syttende mai (literally, May seventeenth — much like Americans have labeled our July fourth holiday, for a similar reason). The public observances attached to this occasion generally center on activities for children (parades, flags, marching bands), but syttende mai also provides a great excuse to take a closer look at the cuisine of a country that is ranked #1 in this year’s World Happiness Report, earning the highest marks in each category of “caring, freedom, generosity, honesty, health, income, and good governance.”

May is National Egg Month, so it’s the perfect time to reflect on the long history and many applications of what is surely one of the world’s oldest foods, an incredibly versatile protein source, starting with the obvious question:

“A man's social rank is determined by the amount of bread he eats in a sandwich.”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned

April, in case you didn’t know, is National Grilled Cheese Month. In light of that, it seems as good a time as any to reflect on the history, popularity, and seemingly infinite possibilities of the sandwich (including the grilled cheese).