'The cheese is always bluer on the other side'

Gorgonzola, Emmental, red Leicester, Port Salut ... every expat has a little nostalgia about home and something that they ache for. My homesickness can be summed up in one word: cheese.

The mere mention of cheese, from Ardrahan to Zamorano, is enough to get my mouth and eyes watering for home comforts. Like for like, in those moments when I see a picture of a London cab or turn on the BBC's Radio 4 Today Programme (at 2 pm rather than 6 am as it is in the UK), my cheese craving kicks in with a vengeance. It is as if presenter Jim Naughtie's dulcet tones were wired to my taste buds.

It took a while for this somewhat inconvenient psychological tic to develop. But what started out as the occasional "Ooh, could really fancy a spot of cheddar" has now become full-blown cheese sickness. Once my cheese sickness strikes, I know I will have no peace until it has been satiated.

As part of the China acclimatization process, I have managed to concoct some makeshift remedies to alleviate the symptoms of my condition. A large pizza on a weekly basis (preferably with extra parmesan) is a good way to keep cheese sickness at bay. Flare-ups can be calmed by dashing to Subway, and in a quavering voice, asking for a 6-incher with triple extra cheddar. At home these insipid yellow plastic triangles would be shunned. But desperate times call for desperate measures.

For the worst attacks - the ones that involve tremors and cold sweats - the only solution is to throw money at the problem. The G Hotel restaurant Scarlett does an eight-cheese selection platter for just more than 200 yuan ($31). The Vineyard Caf near Yonghegong Lama Temple has a number of salads that come topped with a decent crumbling of blue, brie or goat cheese, most around the 60 to 70 yuan mark. It's a bit pricey, but it takes the edge off that persistent feeling that you are a "laowai (foreigner) out of water". That's until someone makes the mistake of suggesting we watch Notting Hill, of course, and you have to launch into another manic hunt for a bit of brie.

But here's the thing. While cheese is not exactly big in China, in Beijing, it is not actually hard to come by. Supermarkets do stock it, albeit dumped in the same aisle as other "unnecessaries" like butter and non-instant coffee. Once you convert the yuan into pounds or dollars, it's not actually that much more expensive than our homegrown stuff.

I also have a slight confession to make. Back in the UK, I wasn't even that into cheese. I'd have a nibble at the post-Christmas Stilton, but given the choice would rather have an extra bowl of figgy pudding. When it came to cheese, I was something of a snob. I wouldn't eat it unless it was really pungent, so ripe it was practically crawling out of its dish.

Instead of scanning a menu and hysterically jabbing my finger at the first cheesy item I saw, I would - nice young lady that I was - select the more delicate options of fish or even - dare I say it - a healthy noodle soup.

If I cast my mind back, I realize too that I have developed obsessions like this before. I spent a year in Austria as part of my undergraduate degree in German, and the moment my plane touched down in Vienna airport, I was struck with a desire for tea with milk.

Never mind the fact that it had always made me retch before. From then on tea with milk became a daily requirement. Ditto the glutinous, salty spread Marmite, which they say you have to be British to actually like. In the UK, I'd been happy with the occasional wipe of Marmite on my morning toast. Once I got to Austria, I was eating Marmite straight from the jar. With a spoon.

The London riots, football hooligans, binge drinkers, Prince Andrew - I am the last person to say that I am proud to be British. But somehow, in leaving England, I have become more English than the English.

Perhaps going abroad turns everyone into a rampant stereotype. Or perhaps it's just the old adage - that the cheese is always bluer on the other side.