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So, there I was in front of a perfectly beautiful cheese counter. The attendant walks over and asks, “Can I help you?” I freeze. “Uh, no thanks,” I mutter, picking up something with a name I didn’t recognize before shuffling off. As much as I’d love to stand there and get cheesy about old world production and the diet of European ruminants, my ignorance would be revealed in due time.

Perhaps it’s time to change.

Here’s some background: in my twenties, my love for cooking, thankfully, spirited me beyond the Kraft American Singles and canned “parmesan” of my childhood. I embraced the requisite recipes of the ‘90s and their cheeses within⎯salads with chevre, Brie slathered with jam in puff pastry and mascarpone-filled tiramisu. Nothing complicated, but better than cheese in a can, another family favorite. Today, Fontina, Emmenthaler, various bleus, and intense cheddars are more my speed, but nothing more complicated than that. I attempt to sample local stuff when I travel, but overall, I don’t retain much about flavor nuances. My comments are limited to things like, “Wow, the parmesan cheese in Italy tastes better than the kind at home.”

The more I get into food, the more I realize there’s a world of cheese I know zero about. To wit⎯a few years ago, my French-Canadian, hyper-foodie friend Sylvie was blathering on about the sturdy French cheese Morbier. She’d been buying it at the now-defunct La Bouchee on Perkins Road, a place where the cryptic cheese counter really had me vexed. “I keep that guy in business buying his Morbier,” she said thickly, pulling on a cigarette. “Finally, something redeemable about life here. I have found Morbier.”

“Yeah,” I nodded, feigning the relief of a trapped aesthete. “I need to run over there myself and restock. Tout de suite.”

But cheese, like wine, is one of those things you can fake your way through only for so long. Eight dollars and one small wedge later, I realized Morbier (which I had never actually tasted) had a gone-to-seed aroma that did nothing to stimulate my Proustian sensibilities, particularly since mine were programmed to blocks of cheddar and Saltines. The Morbier, rejected, grew to a leathery old age in my fridge until I finally tossed it.

I wondered recently, as I gazed upon it at Whole Foods, if I could grow to love Morbier. Surely the proper training could make it happen.

Which brings me to a new project: self-imposed cheese boot camp. It was time to move beyond the gooey comfort of melted mozzarella, Sam’s Club shredded parm, and feta from a plastic box.

Right away, I pulled down Steven Jenkins’ “Cheese Primer,” a book I’ve owned for years, but never read. And right away, my nose-in-the-air tour guide reminded me what a backward-ass foodie I am⎯crackers are a no-no. Do not offend cheese by serving them. Serve bread instead. And while you’re at it, lose the grapes, too. Try figs. Serve cheeses at room temperature with a proper knife for each wedge. And by all means, get some Morbier because it’s the most seductive of all the semi-softs and you’re a total loser if you don’t like it.

Bring it on, I say, and its stinky cousins, too.

The training has begun. Next week, the first report: I dive into Manchego only to be told how unimpressive it actually is.