Imagine losing your head over a block of cheese. It nearly happened to four men in Memphis after a young woman visiting their home mistook a slab of queso fresco she spotted for a chunk of cocaine.
 
Jessica Sandy Booth, 18, then compounded her error by hiring an undercover cop to rob and kill the four men, at which point her plan crumbled like a hunk of soft, crumbly queso fresco, which, BTW, is a much-loved staple of Latin American cuisine.

Queso fresco actually can be hazardous to your health, although not for the reason it nearly killed those Memphis men. Raw milk soft cheeses such as queso fresco pose a health risk due to the unpasteurized milk with which they’re commonly made.
 
The FDA issued an advisory back in March after several cases of tuberculosis in New York City were traced to a batch of queso fresco from Mexico. A major outbreak of salmonella in Yakima County, Washington a few years back was also blamed on queso fresco.
 
The practice of making homemade queso fresco is common in many Hispanic homes, so in response to the outbreak, Washington State University launched a program of “safe cheese workshops,” which showed how to make the cheese with pasteurized milk, and thereby eliminate the risk of salmonella.
 
I think I’ll stick with the blue cheeses; there’s no mistaking them for something more valuable. Then again, at $28.99 a pound, Rogue River Blue is already a precious commodity, at least to an artisanal cheese addict.