Cauliflower in Cheese

This is a serving-vessel recipe: the whole point is the hollowed-out cheese used as a dish. Two of its assumptions — what a pineapple cheese is, and what "creamed cauliflower" means — go unexplained in the original.

• Pineapple cheeseNot cheese flavoured with pineapple, but a hard cow's-milk cheese cured hanging in a net, so the cords printed a ribbed, pineapple-like pattern on the rind; it was sold as a small whole cheese of a few pounds with a tough, hardened and varnished rind. Commercial production has long since died out. A small waxed Edam or Gouda ball, scooped out through a cut-off top, gives much the same effect.
• Scooping the shellLeave at least half an inch of cheese on the rind or the walls may slump in the oven. The recipe does not say where the grated cheese for the top comes from; the scooped interior will supply it, and you will not need all of it.
• Creamed cauliflowerThe book expects cauliflower already cooked tender and bound in a white sauce — roughly a medium béchamel of 2 tbsp butter, 2 tbsp flour and a cup of milk to one small head. Since it bakes again, keep the cauliflower just short of fully tender and the sauce loose; it will thicken.
• Moderate ovenRoughly 350-375F. Twenty minutes is enough to heat the filling through and brown the top; longer and the shell risks softening out of shape.
• The folded clothPresumably to keep a round object from rolling and to keep the base of the rind off the hot metal. A damp folded towel works, or more practically a ring of crumpled foil or a small ovenproof bowl.
• ServingThe recipe gives no yield; one filled ball will do for about four as a side dish. Serve it in the shell and spoon out at the table; the varnished rind is not eaten.