3 minute read
Say cheese
Quicke on cheese
When it comes to cheesemaking few match Mary Quicke for enthusiasm, passion and expertise. Charles Abel reports
CHEESE aromas wafted across the Farmers Suite in early October as Mary Quicke MBE DL led a tasting, which ranged from a subtly rich three-month aged Buttery Cheddar to a complex Extra Mature Cheddar, aged for 30 months to deliver notes of broth and fresh-cut grass.
Farm-crafted cheeses adorning plates in homes and restaurants around the world, and our own Club Restaurant, are the culmination of centuries of effort and accumulated expertise.
But are artisanal cheesemakers correctly rewarded? As farm support payments and trade protection dwindle, change as dramatic as the 1880s Repeal of the Corn Laws looms. Now is the time to boost marketing, not just productivity, insists Mary.
“It is vital to get across to people the value embedded in our products, the landscape, and the way we do things. It’s all about education. Unless people know it will come down to price and appearance.”
Cheese is like wine, she argues. It has terroir. Every decision affects the outcome. But do customers know? Every shop, pub, restaurant and retailer can offer and explain a range of wines. A major new initiative aims to achieve the same for cheese (see panel).
The Quicke family has managed the lush green fields at Newton St Cyres in Devon since 1540. In the 1970s Sir John decided to produce something people would really want – ‘the finest cheese in the world’. A high ambition, but well aligned with the family motto Petit ardua virtus – strength seeks challenges.
As a fourteenth-generation cheesemaker Mary has run Quicke’s since 1987, helping it become the UK’s first farm-based food brand and largest artisanal cheesemaker.
Taste counts
So, what makes the perfect cheese? Impossible to say. Traditional recipes and time-honoured techniques create character. The starters, for example, a rich mix of microbes, bring complex flavour, unlike factory-made cheeses that may use just three-microbe strains to guarantee repeatable but simplistic flavours – very sweet/very sharp.
Quicke’s milk all comes from their own cross-bred grass-fed herd, with trials evaluating the role of different sward mixes. Hand-cheddaring continues, stacking blocks of whey manually, unlike the ‘waterfall’ industrial process.
Cloth-bound ageing in the cheese cathedral involves a distinctive ‘mould garden’, with tasters checking flavour at three, six, nine and 12 months to decide how each cheese should be aged. Winemakers may have a vintage once a year, but cheesemakers have a new vintage every day!
Customers relish that wonderful storyline. “They have a massive appetite for knowledge,” stresses Mary. It is something farming should harness to secure a fairer share of food spending.
ACADEMY OF CHEESE
Eating with knowledge is key. It helps customers buy with purpose, for taste, and to support producers from a locality, with a preferred way of doing things. It answers the question: “why spend more than a fiver a kilo for supermarket cheddar?” The Academy of Cheese, formed last year, aims to nurture expertise, just as the Master of Wine programme stimulated a surge in wine awareness in the 1970s. It has trained 4000 people in 80 countries, with British cheeses accounting for a quarter of the tasting. Could it help cheese expertise match the kudos of wine knowledge? Let’s hope so! www.
academyofcheese.org
GREAT GRAZING
Grazing lies at the heart of flavour. Lush pastures on rich, alluvial soils beside the River Creedy are grazed by Quicke cows with complex genetics: 32% Scandinavian Red, 32% Holstein, 12% Kiwi Friesian, 9% Friesian, 7% Jersey, 5% Montbeliarde, 2% Brown Swiss and 1% Ayrshire. Milk yields may be lower but grazing from Valentine’s Day to Christmas Day underpins Quicke’s distinctive flavours.
