Cheese the Day
Neil Hennessy-Vass likes a fine English cheese
THERE are few greater pleasures than a rich selection of English cheese with some biscuits or bread, chutney and maybe cider, wine or port. We now have so many varieties we can put other traditional cheese-making countries like France or Italy, to shame.
Working as a judge for the World Cheese Awards gave me an insight into global cheese production and obsessions. But in my view, English cheeses are among the finest in the world. Usually one of the top Stilton producers will be rewarded for their dedication in the blue cheeses category by a high placing award, and more often than not winning outright. It’s such a complex and popular cheese that it’s a hard act to follow.
The tradition of cheese-making is one driven by passion and essentially need – the need for sustenance. As is often the case, we have the Romans to thank for the introduction of sustainable livestock husbandry.
During their 400-year tenure, which started in 43 AD, they greatly improved our working knowledge of dairy farming, which is, of course, the beginning of the cheese journey.
A few hundred years later, French Cistercian monks arrived from Roquefort with William the
Conqueror and started producing a cheese that we know today as Wensleydale. They disseminated their superior knowledge to the indigenous population, setting the tone for what is still practised today.
Sheep’s milk was originally the main component of cheese, but as time went on cow’s milk became more popular due to the greater yield from the beast and its versatility, being able to make butter, cream and cheese.
Cheese had its ups and downs during the next millennium, with poor quality cheese known as Flotten a particular low point. It was so hard due to its lack of cream (it was made from skimmed milk as the cream was used for butter) that it was barely edible, and shockingly it was deemed
only “fit for slaves”.
Slowly things improved and character and geography played their parts in the emergence of the cheeses we can still recognise today. Gloucester, morning milk cheese and even a nettle-shrouded medium hard cheese similar to Cornish Yarg became popular in medieval England.
In 1933 the Milk Marketing Board was established to assist farmers in getting a good and fair price for their product, and this reduced the number of farmhouse cheeses to virtually nothing, as there was no need to make anything from milk.
After World War II, cheese-making took a further dip in popularity. There was a country to rebuild after all, and we still had rationing. The economies of scale just weren’t there to make it commercially viable. Plus the government put into force new health regulations that made it hard to create anything worth eating.
But since the 1970s and 1980s there has been a steady increase in artisanal cheese production and, more importantly, a greater appreciation of this much loved, hugely complex home-grown wonder we simply call cheese. A more sophisticated palate and exposure to foreign travel have helped us become “experts” in cheese and thus more demanding of our own home-grown produce.
The British Cheese Board proudly confirms that there are now over 700 varieties in production in the UK, of which the vast majority are in England. Quality in England has risen over the years and people tend to vote
TUNWORTH
Tunworth is England’s answer to Camembert. Made with pasteurised cow’s milk in Herriard, near Basingstoke, Hampshire, this creamy, nutty delight will acquire a stronger flavour the longer it matures. Handmade by Stacey Hedges and Charlotte Spruce, it has a thin, wrinkled rind, and is creamy with a slight hint of garlic and truffle. It’s an award winner, too, having scooped Supreme Champion at the British Cheese Awards and a gold medal at the World Cheese Awards. Packaged in a wooden box, this is really good with a dry cider or a chilled sparkling white wine from Nyetimber, produced from grapes grown in Sussex, Hampshire and Kent.
with their purses and, like poor restaurants, there is no place for a sub-standard cheese in the modern marketplace.
After mozzarella and Parmesan, the most popular cheese in the world is Cheddar. Those three names tell you a story about cheese: it’s a regional entity. The locale is paramount to its identity and taste.
Mozzarella, or white gold as it’s known in Italy, for example, is made using buffalo or cows’ milk near Naples, the terroir providing that flavour that blends so well with fresh tomatoes and torn basil, all local to the region.
That small English village in Somerset has carried its reputation across the globe, and you can now get Canadian, Australian, New Zealand and United States Cheddar, all using the stage in the cheese-making process that defines it as such. The curds and whey are separated using rennet, an enzyme from the stomachs of calves (vegetarian versions use the bacterial yeast or mould chymosin), then the “cheddaring” takes place.
STILTON
The king of cheeses many say, made in a specific geographical area under a protected designation of origin, Stilton is an English blue cheese which has penicillium roqueforti added to give it the distinctive smell and taste (there is a milder white one as well). It can only be made in three counties: Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire.
The town of Stilton, where the cheese obtained its name due to strong sales, now lies in Cambridgeshire, so ironically can no longer produce the eponymous cheese. The distinctive blue veining is achieved by piercing the cheese and letting air get to the inside as it matures, creating its own crust.
A great centrepiece to any board. Serve with chutney, pear, apple and, of course, port.
The salted curd is kneaded after heating and cut into cubes, usually with a wire. This allows drainage, then they are stacked and turned. A strong or vintage Cheddar will be matured in a damp environment (often the caves of Cheddar such as Wookey Hole) for more than 15 months. This process, or variations of it, make what is known as Cheddar.
There are so many cheeses to contemplate at a special time like
Christmas, but I would hastily add that a good cheese is not just for Christmas: it should have a place in your larder all year round.
So these are only suggestions. You may not have heard of all of them, or had a chance to experience their taste, but I urge you to try as many English cheeses as you can. There are so many on offer that there is one to suit everyone’s palate and, of course, it all helps support our regional producers.
CHEDDAR
I’m sure it can be found in most homes throughout the year, so why not take it to the next level for Christmas? I have a particular liking for smoked cheeses, and cheddar is one that takes it very well. Smoking food is ancient and we need not look far from our own shores to see its prevalence in modern cuisine – the Scandinavians, for example, have taken it to a higher art form, and the English are no slouches when it comes to salmon and hams.
But there is one company that I really admire because I’ve never had a bad piece of cheese from them. Quickes, a family business since the ’70s, use their own oak trees to smoke their cheddar (they plant 7,000 trees a year to even things out). It is a rich, long-lasting experience that works superbly with sharp drinks like cider and pilsner.