Free Why Do Pirates Love Parrots? by David Feldman

easily made round, as Sommer explains:
     
         Smear ripened cheeses like Limburger and brick cheese can only be made in relatively small sizes due to the need for the enzymes that form on the surface of the cheese to migrate to the very center of the cheese over time. If the cheese is too large, then the enzymes cannot reach the center in a reasonable curing time. Similarly, in cheeses such as Camembert and Brie, the mold growing on the exterior of the cheese produces flavors and enzymes that need to migrate into the interior of the cheese. With blue cheese, the round shape is optimal for brining and salt absorption and if the cheese isn’t in a relatively round, small wheel the inward pressures would be too great, collapsing the open structure and not allowing the blue mold to grow as well (because the mold needs air pockets inside the cheese to grow).
     
     
    Many hard cheeses, especially ones that are brined or smoked, work best when made in a wheel or cylinder, where the flavoring on the outside, whether salt or brine, can evenly penetrate the interior. Provolone was traditionally made in the shape of salami. Authentic provolone is smoked, and David Brown speculates that the 200-pound provolone might have hung next to salamis and other cured meats in smokehouses in Italy.
    Mozzarella was traditionally created in balls, probably to promote evenness in the brining process, and you still see them in Italian markets and gourmet stores, but because it has become a mass-market item, you can find rectangular specimens in stores, along with the shredded mozzarella for lazy pizza makers.
     
     
     
    Submitted by Julie Erskine of Columbus, Ohio. Thanks also to Zoe Klugman of Guilford, Connecticut.

 
     

What Does the “D” in D-Day Stand For?
     
     
    O n June 6, 1944, 156,000 Allied soldiers headed to the shores of France (most famously, in Normandy), as part of Operation Overlord, the code name for the entire Allied invasion of northwest Europe. Not all of the soldiers landed on the beaches on June 6, but that day became known as D-Day, the beginning of the pivotal Battle of Normandy.
    In an unscientific sampling of friends and acquaintances, we received all kinds of guesses about what the D might represent. Some of the guesses included: Decision, Disembarkation, Debarkation, Doomsday, Deliverance, and most commonly, Dunno.
    We contacted the D-Day Museum in Portsmouth, England, and a representative wrote Imponderables that the museum’s own Web site’s explanation was as good as any:
     
         When a military operation is being planned, its actual date and time is not always known exactly. The term “D-Day” was therefore used to mean the date on which operations would begin, whenever that was to be. The day before D-Day was known as “D-1,” while the day after D-Day was “D + 1,” and so on. This meant that if the projected date of an operation changed, all the dates in the plan did not also need to be changed. This actually happened in the case of the Normandy landings. D-Day in Normandy was originally intended to be on 5 June 1944, but at the last minute bad weather delayed it until the following day. The armed forces also used the expression “H-Hour” for the time during the day at which operations were to begin….
     
     
    Both the U.S. and British military have the same designations for “D” and “H” in military planning. We haven’t been able to find its first use in England, but in the United States it dates back at least to World War I. According to the U.S. Army Center of Military History,
     
         The earliest use of these terms by the U.S. Army that the Center of Military History has been able to find was during World War I. In Field Order Number 9, First Army, American Expeditionary Forces, dated September 7, 1918: “The First Army will attack at H hour on D day with the object of forcing the evacuation of the St. Mihiel Salient.
     
     
    Submitted by Lance Tock of