I can kill any thread by simply posting in it, so I guess it is time for this one to go.
In the early 60's I was head of the group at the Sandia National Laboratories responsible for the safety of nuclear weapons -- which among other things involved joint safety reviews of NATO aircraft that might carry US nuclear weapons. In Britain these were carried out at Farnborough AirBase outside of London which is where I stayed commuting back and forth to the AirBase each day. I am a big meat eater but meat was used more as a condiment than as a main dish by the British at that time. Very small portions and what little you did get wasn't much good. By the middle of a week I was protein starved. On the way from the station to my hotel I happened to pass a cheese shop which at least promised protein. They had a cheese I had never seen before -- Welsh Caerphilly -- about the consistency of a Muenster, considerably more pungent and rich in cream. I bought a chunk and took it back to the hotel where -- like a rat in the pantry -- I nibbled the whole thing away in one evening. Next day, same story, and the next. By that time I had a real addiction to Welsh Caerphilly and was due to come home the next day so I bought an entire wheel of it: bigger round than a dinner plate and maybe five inches thick to bring home with me since I was sure I couldn't find it in Albuquerque.
In those days I traveled with what we in the military had called a B4 bag, a sort of garment bag that folded in the middle with lots of storage pockets and compartments. For a weeks trip I just took clean clothes from one side and put the dirty ones in the other so that by the end of the week one side was mostly empty and the other was packed with dirty stuff. I wrapped the cheese in something and put it in the mostly empty side and caught a plane home across the Atlantic. The baggage compartments are heated since people ship pets so my Caerphilly spent several hours in a nice warm baggage compartment before we got to New York. The customs shed in those days had long counters about a foot and a half tall topped with tin on which you were supposed to place your baggage and open it for inspection -- which was a real inspection back then. Just as I got to the table I saw a list of banned substances on a poster overhead, no plants with root stocks, no dried meats and NO DAIRY PRODUCTS. There I was with maybe 20 pounds of contraband cheese. Just then the customs inspecter walked up and asked "What you got in here?" as he unzipped the side of the B4 with the cheese in it. "Dirty clothes" I said just as the aroma from the eight hours of incubation for the Caerphilly poured out and up into his face. "Oh my God" he said and zipped the bag shut and waved me out of the shed. That is the story of my shortlived career as a smuggler and of my discovery of a wonderful cheese which I still delight in to this day.