Good Cheese 2015-16

goodcheese 2011-12 EDITION

£3.95

2015-16

Making it, selling it, enjoying it

BLUES IN YOUR BACKYARD From Mull to the Isle of Wight, there’s a brilliant blue for your ‘local’ cheeseboard

PEAK PLEASURE The full story of Le Gruyère AOP, the great Swiss alpine cheese

EAT THE WORLD 10 great cheese destinations around the globe

VIVE LA CHÈVRE! How classic French goats’ cheeses fare against the upstart English

PLUS: RECIPES from Tom Kerridge, Hugh FearnleyWhittingstall and Jason Atherton

INSIDE: PAXTON & WHITFIELD | ERRINGTON CHEESE | ADDITIVE CHEESES TASTY ACCOMPANIMENTS | FIND A CHEESE SHOP | TRAINING COURSES

LE GRUYÈRE AOP

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BORN IN SWITZERLAND, 1115 A.D. And remains the only cheese that’s 100% Natural, 100% Traditional, 100% from Switzerland and 100% Le Gruyère AOP *AOP = PDO (Protected Designation of Origin) – must be traditionally and entirely prepared and produced within the region, thus acquiring the unique properties of Gruyère AOP cheese, to bear the name Le Gruyère AOP.

The uniquely smooth, savoury flavour you’ll find only in Le Gruyère AOP is a product of its upbringing – where the cows that supply the milk are grazed (only in the villages of Western Switzerland), the way the cheese is aged and cared for (slow-aged in the region’s cheese cellars and caves), and the recipe that’s remained, unchanged, for centuries (hand-made, in small batches). For a smooth and mild yet extremely satisfying taste, Le Gruyère Classic is aged 5 months minimum. Le Gruyère Reserve, which has been aged for 10 months or more, has a smooth but more robust flavour. Both varieties are great in recipes, or sliced as a snack. Either way, we’re sure you’ll enjoy the only cheese that can call itself Le Gruyère AOP.

Switzerland.

Naturally.

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Castle of Gruyères

Born in Switzerland in 1115. www.gruyere.com

Cheeses from Switzerland. www.cheesesfromswitzerland.com

welcome

what’s inside

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12 32 42 Counter culture

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News from the world of cheese.

Interview: Ros Windsor

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Mick Whitworth speaks to the Paxton & Whitfield boss.

British regional blues

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Almost every UK county has a blue cheese bearing its name. Patrick McGuigan checks out both established favourites and the newcomers.

Profile: Errington Cheese

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Famed for its unpasteurised blue cheeses, the South Lanarkshire maker is now a second-generation business and is forging ahead with new styles.

Cheese destinations

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We give you the lowdown on the best cheese experiences, both at home and abroad.

Taste test: British v French goats’ cheese

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The much-maligned ‘cheese with bits in’ has given this style a bad name but they’re not all to be sniffed at, says Patrick McGuigan.

Profile: Le Gruyère AOP

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Good Cheese visits Switzerland to find out how this Alpine legend is made.

Cheese accompaniments

MICK WHITWORTH Editor Good Cheese and Fine Food Digest

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Good Cheese founder Bob Farrand leads a tasting to compare well-established French classics with those from upstart British producers.

Additive cheese

f you need confirmation that Britain has truly arrived as a producer of fine artisan cheeses, look no further than this 2015-16 edition of Good Cheese.

For starters, take Bob Farrand’s blind-tasting of English versus French goats’ cheeses (p24), staged at Partridges food hall in London’s Duke of York Square with the help of two experts from the other side of the Channel.

As Bob suggests, two decades ago you’d have struggled to find enough British goats’ cheeses to make a comparative tasting worth the effort.

Now, there are dozens available in delis, farm shops and food halls up and down the land, and several in our tasting proved so good that even the chaps from France thought they might have been French.

Then there’s our round-up of British regional blues (p12) by Patrick McGuigan, who writes the regular cheese section in our monthly sister magazine Fine Food Digest.

There’s not quite a blue for every county yet, but we’re getting there, and two of the finest – Cornish Blue and the Stilton-like Bath Blue – have been World Cheese Awards champions in the past few years.

The history of Lanark Blue maker Errington Cheese (p17) in some ways sums up the story of our whole artisan sector – particularly those making unpasteurised cheeses. In the 1990s the little family firm was nearly beaten into submission in a long-running court battle centred on the ‘health risks’ of raw milk cheese, at a time when local health officers had little or no experience of Continental-style products, or indeed of anything not made in a factory.

The little producer triumphed, however, thanks to the resilience of founder Humphrey Errington, and went onto become a beacon for the sector, smoothing the path for numerous other raw milk cheese-makers.

Perhaps most telling of all, though, are the comments of Ros Windsor (p8), boss of revered cheesemonger and wholesaler Paxton & Whitfield, who I interviewed at her flagship London store in St James’s, just round the corner from Fortnum & Mason.

British cheeses have made up the bulk of Paxton’s sales for more than a decade, Ros told me, but there are now so many popping up that she’s running out of space to stock and display them.

At the company’s stores in Bath and Stratfordupon-Avon, they have to operate a rotation policy to give more producers a look-in, and to keep things interesting for a customer base hungry to try something new, especially if it’s local or regional. And Ros tells us there are few styles of cheese that cannot now be sourced from an artisan maker somewhere in the British Isles.

That may pose challenges for budding cheese-makers looking for a niche. For the rest of us, as consumers, it’s a joy.

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EDITORIAL editorial@gff.co.uk Editor: Mick Whitworth Deputy editor: Michael Lane Reporter: Arabella Mileham Art director: Mark Windsor Contributors: Patrick McGuigan, Isabelle Plasschaert

ADVERTISING advertise@gff.co.uk Sales manager: Sally Coley Advertisement sales: Becky Stacey, Ruth Debnam

Looking for something to adorn your cheeseboard? Find your ideal pairing in our round-up of chutneys, crackers, beer and more.

Published by Great Taste Publications Ltd and the Guild of Fine Food Ltd

Recipes

Managing director: John Farrand Marketing director: Tortie Farrand Chairman: Bob Farrand Director: Linda Farrand Operations & Guild membership: Charlie Westcar, Karen Price, Jilly Sitch, Claire Powell Accounts: Stephen Guppy, Denise Ballance, Julie Coates

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Two pages of dishes from top chefs and restaurateurs

Where to buy good cheese Find your nearest stockist in this directory of shops.

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GENERAL ENQUIRIES Tel: 01747 825200 Fax: 01747 824065 info@gff.co.uk www.gff.co.uk Guild of Fine Food, Guild House, 23b Kingsmead Business Park, Shaftesbury Road, Gillingham, Dorset SP8 5FB United Kingdom Good Cheese is a sister magazine of Fine Food Digest.

FFD is published 11 times a year and is available on subscription for £45pa inclusive of post and packing.

Printed by: Blackmore, Dorset, UK © Great Taste Publications Ltd and The Guild of Fine Food Ltd 2015. Reproduction of whole or part of this magazine without the publisher’s prior permission is prohibited. The opinions expressed in articles and advertisements are not necessarily those of the editor or publisher. The publisher cannot accept responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts, photographs or illustrations.

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HAND MADE RAW MILK PASTA FILATA CHEESES “the best thing out there for cheese”

WE WORK WITH BUFFALO, COW & SHEEP MILK BUFFALO MOZZARELLA, SCAMORZA, STRAW SMOKED SCAMORZA, CACIO CAVALLO, CACIO OCCHIATO MADE IN WEST CORK

Also a large range of very high quality imported mediterranean food available through our sister company therealoliveco.com For a wholesale price list contact Ronan: sales@toonsbridgedairy.com

2015 Another great year for Peter’s Yard Out of 10,000 entries, Peter’s Yard Original Sourdough crispbread was awarded Top 50 status and was described by the judges as “the best thing out there for cheese”

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www.toonsbridgedairy.com ToonsBridge @toonsbridge

COUNTER CULTURE Finding washed rinds

Cheesemaker Paul sets course for River Cottage

Harvey & Brockless category manager Owen Davies has one of the best jobs in the UK – discovering new cheese, visiting the makers and, of course, extensive tasting.

Thanks to Owen and his team, the wholesaler’s latest winter range features a couple of new British washed rind cheeses.

First up is Sheep Rustler, a semi-hard washed rind cheese made from sheep’s milk by White Lake in Somerset.

The cheese, which is aged for five months to achieve a clean nutty flavour, was named by White Lake founder Pete Humphries after his cheese-maker Russell.

Harvey & Brockless will also be bringing a new cheese from the Cotswolds to a larger audience. The buttery, unctuous Rollright is produced by King Stone Dairy, a partnership between the Haine family and cheese-maker David Jowett. www.harveyandbrockless.co.uk

River Cottage image: Nick Hook

Dairy consultant and artisan cheese-maker Paul Thomas (left) is joining the roster of course tutors at River Cottage HQ in Devon – the cookery, dining and events venue set up

by TV chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and his team.

Paul, who has over a decade of experience as a cheesemaker and affineur, will start his one-day cheese-making courses for hobbiests at “HQ” from April 2016.

He takes over from Tom Calver of Westcombe Dairy, the Somerset-based producer of cheddar, Caerphilly and ricotta.

Paul, a raw milk cheese specialist, already teaches professional-level courses at the School of Artisan Food in Nottinghamshire.

With a degree in biochemistry, he spent several years with Edinburgh cheesemonger and wholesaler IJ Mellis as a shop manager, warehouse manager and affineur, before moving to Lyburn Farmhouse Cheesemakers in 2008.

In 2013 he also set up Thimble Cheesemakers, near Alton in Hampshire, with wife Hannah Roche, who had also worked in cheesemaking and retailing.

The couple make two raw milk soft varieties: the 40g lactic cheese Little Anne and the 150g washed rind Dorothy.

Paul Thomas’s book Making Cheese and Dairy Products at Home will be published by Anness in 2016. www.rivercottage.net

Guild steps up training programme for 2016 The coming year will see the Guild of Fine Food, publisher of Good Cheese, staging more of its cheese training courses than ever before.

There will be 13 new-look courses – primarily aimed at retailers who want to sell more cheese and know more about their products – running in 2016 at various locations across the UK. As well as at the Guild’s HQ in Dorset, other courses will also be held in Yorkshire, Scotland, the North West, London and the South East.

There are also plans for a two-day course, hosted by a cheese-maker, that will see delegates spend one day in the classroom and the other at a working dairy.

The Guild revamped its training events in 2015 with two new instructors – top cheesemonger Charlie Turnbull and Guild training coordinator Jilly Sitch – and a new focus on coaching attendees through every step of selling cheese.

Contact Jilly to find out about more about your nearest course and when it is taking place. jilly.sitch@gff.co.uk

Become a true ‘Master of Cheese’ Cheese fans will soon have a chance to take part in a new professional training scheme, similar to courses offered to wine buffs by the Wine & Spirit Education Trust.

Currently in development, the Academy of Cheese will include four levels of qualification, some of which will suit cheese-loving consumers as well as those in the trade.

Paxton & Whitfield MD Ros Windsor (see

p8) – who is part of the academy’s steering group that also includes cheddar queen Mary Quicke – told Good Cheese the training would be aimed at cheesemongers and cheese-makers as well as wholesalers, retailers, chefs, restaurant staff – and consumers.

“Very importantly, we would like consumers to come onto the programme,” she said.

“It is important we have a broad base because we don’t have as many cheese professionals in the

country as we do wine professionals.”

Topics will include studying various cheese styles – how they are made and how they taste –as well as looking after and presenting them.

Levels 1 and 2 are likely to be suitable for deli counter assistants, cheese counter supervisors and restauarant managers as well keen consumers.

The higher levels, including a ‘Master of Cheese’ qualification, will suit those building a serious career in the cheese world.

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COUNTER CULTURE Hartington singing the blues The regeneration of Derbyshire’s only Stilton maker, Hartington Creamery, continues apace as it has extended its dairy and taken on two more full-time staff to meet the demand for its cheese.

Closed by former owner Dairy Crest in 2009, the revived creamery will now be able to produce 120 tonnes of the King of British Cheeses every year thanks to these additions.

Although it was only restored to life by ex-employees of the old business in 2014, Hartington has already taken a number of awards for its Stilton, including Golds at the International Cheese Awards and the Bakewell Show. www.hartingtoncreamery.co.uk

Swiss-style cheese – from the Cornish ‘alps’?

Anglo-Scotch cheese A cross-border collaboration between Cumbria’s Appleby Creamery and the Crofthead Dairy in Dumfriesshire has led to the creation of a new range of pasteurised cheeses launching under the Brown Cow brand.

Milk from Crofthead’s award-winning herd of Ayrshire cows is used by Appleby to produce a line-up that includes a creamy brie, a smoked brie, a Scottish blue and a vintage cheddar.

Cows and Co, the new organisation behind the brand, will be marketing it throughout the UK and internationally. www.cowsandco.com

Goodbye halloumi?

Even though its name is under threat from EU bureaucracy, High Weald Dairy’s halloumi has had a bumper year in 2015. It is available in two versions – 100% organic sheep milk or a blend of organic cows’ and sheep’s milk – and its creator says it has a lower salt content than cheeses made in Cyprus, although it retains the characteristic squeak.

As Good Cheese went to press, the halloumi name was still the subject of a Protected Designation of Origin application to the EU from Cypriot producers. If approved, this application would see High Weald have to find a new name for its take on the uniquely textured cheese.

A husband-and-wife team based near picturesque Port Isaac in Cornwall have launched what they believe is the UK’s first artisan Swiss-style cheese.

Rosea and Lawrence Reynolds (right) have set up River Amble Creamery to make the semi-hard, cows’ milk Cornish Jack, which is initially being sold through a handful of specialist shops in the West Country.

Sweet and nutty, with a savoury background, and with prominent ‘eyes’ or holes formed by the action of Propionibacterium during the make, Cornish Jack is being aged for at least four months before sale.

There are also plans to trial a 12-month-aged version.

Although the newcomer has similarities to Jarlsberg, Emmental and Le Gruyère, its makers are steering clear of a direct comparison.

“It’s Alpine in style but we can’t really call it that in Cornwall,” said Lawrence Reynolds, “so we’re calling it ‘Swiss-style’ .

“It’s actually closer to a Jarlsberg, but a lot of people don’t really know what that tastes like.”

He added: “I’ve been told that, in France, this style is incredibly popular with parents, because it’s a great way to get kids into eating cheese. The sweetness appeals to them because there are no acidic cheddar flavours.”

As well as making an interesting addition to the cheeseboard, Cornish Jack makes a tasty cheese on toast, and the newcomers hope West Country chefs will soon be using it in a host of cheesy dishes.

The couple have used a small dairy facility at Duchy College Food Innovation Centre near Callington, Cornwall, to produce their first commercial batches. But they plan to build their own small dairy on land near Port Isaac once they can convince planners the business is sustainable.

Milk is being supplied by Rodda’s, the famous Redruth-based clotted cream producer, which buys in high quality milk from more than a dozen Cornish farms.

Lawrence Reynolds, who worked in textile manufacturing for more than two decades, handles production and sales, while his wife – a former Cornwall Council environmental health officer – oversees technical aspects. www.facebook.com/CornishJackCheese

www.highwealddairy.co.uk

World Cheese Awards head for San Sebastián

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The 2016 World Cheese Awards (WCAs) will be staged in the autonomous Basque region of northern Spain, thanks to a tie-up between British organiser the Guild of Fine Food and artisan cheese-making co-operative Artzai Gazta.

The 116-member co-op proposed the move in 2014 after entering its Idiazabal raw sheep’s milk cheeses into the competition for a number of years.

2016-17 Supported by the Basque Government, the move will see the awards held outside the UK for only the third time in their 27-year history. They will form part of an International Cheese Festival to be held in San Sebastián from November 16-19.

The 2016 awards and accompanying festival are expected to draw thousands of local and international food A O WARDS A professionals, foodie consumers and tourists, raising awareness ST IA / SA N SEB of the Basque Country’s artisan cheese-making culture.

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INTERVIEW

Best of both worlds British artisan cheeses are seriously fashionable, elbowing out familiar foreign cheeses in many farm shops and delis. But at historic London cheesemonger Paxton & Whitfield they’re still finding space for new Continental treats, as MD Ros Windsor (above) tells MICK WHITWORTH.

Paxton & Whitfield Images by Isabelle Plasschaert

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t’s more than a decade since Ros Windsor left a high-flying career with accountants PricewaterhouseCoopers to run Paxton & Whitfield, a Royal Warrant holder and probably Britain’s longest established cheesemonger.

Nowadays, she is seen as a leading figure in the specialist cheese sector – “a seriously capable individual”, as one producer told me recently. And it’s clear this maths and statistics graduate hasn’t lost her penchant for figures.

When we meet on an autumn morning at Paxtons’ flagship London store, 93 Jermyn Street, to talk about the shifting balance between UK and Continental cheeses, she is already armed with the sums.

“I’ve been in the business for 14 years now,” she says, “and my sales data tells me that, throughout that time, the split has been 33% Continental and 67% British.”

That sales mix doesn’t surprise me – but the absence of change does. The past decade or more has not only seen a boom in new British small-scale producers and a huge hike in quality, but ‘local and regional’ has become the focus for many shops.

Surely this must have made a dent in sales of those Continental varieties that once dominated deli counters?

“I’ve checked the figures again just this morning,” Ros confirms, “and it has stuck at that level throughout.”

Demand does vary across Paxton’s four stores: two in London, and two in the west of England.

At Cale Street, in London SW3 – the company’s newest store, opened in autumn 2015 – as much as 50% of the cheese sold is from outside the UK, reflecting the cosmopolitan clientele of Chelsea. It sells “disproportionately more ewes’ milk cheese”, for example. In Bath and Stratford upon Avon, on the 8

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other hand, British cheeses account for more than two-thirds of what crosses the counter.

While I’d assumed interest in Continental cheeses must have waned – and the volume sold must have dropped accordingly – it seems new British varieties may simply have rekindled interest in fine cheeses overall. “The pie has grown over the last 10 years,” says Ros, “so there’s a lot more sold.

“Yes, Brie de Meaux is still our top Continental cheese, but we probably sell the same volume as a decade ago – along with a whole load of other cheeses nowadays. People do explore the counter much more.”

As a wholesaler as well as a retailer, Ros can

“It’s important that any new cheeses we’re offered today have visual presence on the counter”

understand why many delis and farm shops outside the big cities have made Britain their focus. “There are some very good small cheese-makers now, and in a small regional deli, doing ‘local’ can give you an important point of difference.”

There are logistical issues, too, for the small shop that wants to source from further afield. With French, Spanish or Italian artisan cheeses, so much comes down to establishing a cost-effective distribution system.

In London, Ros points out, it’s easier. “We have some very good wholesalers.” But even the revered Paxton’s can sometimes struggle to establish a good, regular connection with true artisan producers across the Channel.

With the exception of the vast Rungis market in Paris, which provides a clearing house for many French producers, there are few good specialist distributors working with genuine artisans in Continental Europe, making it hard for retailers here to avoid buying staples like parmesan or manchego from bigger, distinctly non-artisan mainstream suppliers.

“Our Italian wholesaler is getting much better,” says Ros, “and is going out to search for more artisan products. And that’s because they are having to differentiate themselves from big wholesalers, who are bringing in masses of pecorinos and manchegos.”

This difficulty in connecting directly with small European cheesemakers also means many UK retailers know less about these more hard-to-find varieties, which in turn makes them more challenging to sell.

“As a retailer you want to go with something you can easily explain and communicate,” says Ros, “and there’s so much more written about British cheeses.

“Ten years ago people would have come in for their standard Montgomery cheddar and Stilton. Now they come in and say, “I’d like a British blue, not too strong. What would you recommend?’ And there are

Ros’s choice of lesser-known British cheeses...

...and Continentals worth writing home about

Baron Bigod A brie-style raw milk cheese made by Jonathan Crickmore on Fen Farm in Suffolk, with milk from his family’s herd of Montbeliarde cows. Baron Bigod gives Brie de Meaux a run for its money, with its soft, white bloomy rind, golden curd and long, earthy and mushroom flavours.

Rollright Only launched to the public in July 2015, the washed rind Rollright is a semi-soft, pasteurised cows’ milk cheese handmade by David Jowett at King Stone Dairy in Little Rollright, Oxfordshire.

Inspired by Reblochon, it has a peachy coloured rind, complementing a pale, unctuous inner paste. The flavour is savoury and meaty, with faint buttery notes, and it avoids the more pungent aromas of some washed rind styles.

Beauvale

more British blues than French now.”

It has become a major challenge, she tells me, to find shelf space for the number of home-grown cheeses now coming on stream, so fewer of the newcomers are likely to command a permanent place on the counter. Paxton & Whitfield differentiates itself by ringing the changes, and – given so much choice – is fairly ruthless in cutting any that don’t strike a chord with cheese lovers.

This can be tricky for the small producer who maybe be producing and maturing cheeses for sale several months later. “At Bath and Stratford we rotate the cheeses we’re stocking, and that means we have to work very closely with the makers,” says Ros. “If it’s a new cheese, we may put it on the counter, and we always like to give it a fair crack of the whip. But we may not buy any more.”

As the sector grows, it’s also getting trickier for our own cheese-makers to command space as a tasty British substitute for old favourites like brie, camembert or manchego.

“Baron Bigod [from Suffolk’s Fen Farm Dairy] has found a niche as a quality British brie with real depth of flavour,” says Ros, “but there aren’t many gaps in the counter, so the cheese has to be good – and consistently good.

“If you look at washed-rind cheeses, Alex James’ Goddess is new; Baronet is new from Juliana Sedli down at Neston Park; Dave Jowett [of King Stone Dairy] is making Rollright down in the Cotswolds. So there may have been gaps in washed rind a couple of years ago, but there aren’t now.”

One remaining niche, Ros says – laying down a challenge of sorts to the Brits – is what she calls “sweetie” cheeses: the kind of irresistible, often beautifully leaf-wrapped or herb-dusted single-serving goats’ milk cheeses at which France excels . “The French have all sorts of different, interesting-looking shapes, whereas our goats’ cheeses are often just copies – and not as good as anything you could get at Rungis.”

She adds: “It’s important that any new cheeses we’re offered today have visual presence on the counter. The first thing people buy with is their eyes.” www.paxtonandwhitfield.co.uk

Beauvale was developed a few years ago by Robin Skailes of Cropwell Bishop Creamery, Paxton & Whitfield’s Stilton supplier, partly to provide a handmade British substitute for imported soft blues. It is made with pasteurised cows’ milk, traditional rennet and a different strain of Penicillium Roqueforti to their Stilton. Beauvale has a rich, creamy texture and a full flavour: predominantly savoury, with a bit of spice. Firm when young, it starts to break down as it matures, developing a runny centre.

Baronet Made by Hungarianborn Julianna Sedli of The Old Cheese Room, in a converted outbuilding on the Neston Park Estate in Wiltshire, Baronet uses pasteurised milk from the estate’s Jersey cows. Its recipe is loosely based on Reblochon, a French cheese from the Savoie. The cheese is washed in brine to create a distinctive sticky orange rind, and has a rich, full-bodied flavour that rivals its Alpine cousins.

Windrush These fresh, small round goats’ cheeses are made by awardwinning cheesemakers Renee and Richard Loveridge at Windrush Valley Goat Dairy in Oxfordshire, with pasteurised milk from their pedigree herd of Saaren goats. These gentle cheeses come either plain or flavoured with cracked black pepper or garlic and herbs, and have a loose texture with a gentle, refreshing flavour.

+ʶ­Ą òÃÊ ę­Ąª Ąòď Produced on the island of Sardinia, Pecorino Moliterno al Tartufo is a raw sheep’s milk cheese shot through with thick veins of truffle. During maturation, the cheese is rubbed with vinegar and local olive oil, creating a rich, earthy cheese enhanced by the truffle flavour.

Hubaner Voted Austria’s best hard cheese a few years ago, this Alpine-style raw milk cheese, aged for around eight months, is made by a modern co-operative creamery near the Swiss and German borders. It uses cows’ milk from around 30 small farms. Inside, the cheese has little pea-sized eyes resulting from gas produced during its making.

Rich and silky, it has toasted nut flavours and spicy after-notes.

Mothais Sur Feuille This tangy, unpasteurised goats’ milk cheese hails from the PoitouCharentes region of western France.

Cheesemaker Paul Georgelet learned his skills from the older women in his village, and now makes his own cheese largely with milk from his own goats. Complex and richly flavoured, with a creamy but firm texture, the ovalshaped cheese is wrapped in a dried chestnut leaf which, as well as looking good, helps maintain the right moisture during maturation.

Moelleux du Revard This raw milk cheese was created two years ago by affineur and artisan producer Schmidhauser, in the Rhone-Alps region of France. A washed rind cow’s milk cheese wrapped by a spruce belt, it has a subtle, creamy flavour similar to Mont D’Or and St. Nectaire.

(The word moelleux means ‘creamy’ in French).

Paxton & Whitfield has launched the cheese with help from Parisian cheesemonger Androuët, with which it has had a trading partnership since 2009.

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AGENTS FOR UK AND IRELAND

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Kursaal, San Sebastián – the venue for World Cheese Awards 2016-17

BE A WORLD CHAMPION The World Cheese Awards sees more entries, from more cheesemakers, from more countries, judged by more international experts than any other cheese competition.

In November 2016 we are helping San Sebastian celebrate their status as European City of Culture by taking the awards to the Basque Country.

Find out more at www.gff.co.uk/wca 16-19 November 2016

Guild of Fine Food · Guild House · 23b Kingsmead Business Park · Shaftesbury Road · Gillingham · Dorset SP8 5FB · UK · +44 (0)1747 825200

www.gff.co.uk |

@guildoffinefood #worldcheeseawards

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british regional blues

You’re so vein From world-beating Bath Blue to a newbie from Northants, Britain’s roster of regional blue cheeses is spreading like... well, like a fungus, as PATRICK McGUIGAN reports.

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ritain’s cheese-makers have been turning the air blue in recent years. Not with colourful language (although the odd slip of the tongue is not unheard of in a dairy), but with Penicillium roqueforti – the fungus responsible for the blue veins in cheese.

While Stilton has long been known as the ‘king of British cheeses’, its pre-eminence has come under pressure from a new generation of regional blue cheeses, which are named after the county or area in which they are made. From gooey Isle of Wight Blue in the South to feisty Hebridean Blue in the north of Scotland, cheese-makers the length and breadth of the country are singing the blues like never before.

One of the best known is Cornish Blue, which was named supreme champion at the World Cheese Awards in 2010, beating more than 2,500 cheeses from around the world to the title in a series of blind judging rounds. It was the first British cheese to win the accolade in more than 10 years.

The delicately sweet and creamy blue cows’ milk cheese, which is made by Philip Stansfield at the Cornish Cheese Co in Liskeard, immediately became a best seller in delis around the country with the company recently investing £500,000 to double the capacity of its premises.

A similar surge in demand is being felt by the Bath Soft Cheese Co, whose Stilton-esque Bath Blue replicated the achievements of its Cornish counterpart by taking the top title at last year’s World Cheeses Awards.

Director Hugh Padfield, whose father Graham first started making cheese at his farm in Kelston in Bath in 1993, says that sales of the blue cheese have jumped by 50-75% since the win. It couldn’t have come at a better time with the company moving to a much larger dairy in May. He puts the rise of regional blue cheeses down to a combination of factors.

“The initial British artisan cheeses, made in the 1980s and ’90s, had some quite eccentric names, but by the early ‘noughties’ it became all about food miles and local food, so it made sense to name a cheese after your local area,” he says. “At the same time, the public had become more interested in food. Blue cheese used to be like selling whisky at lunchtime – it was a tough sell – but that wasn’t the case any more.”

One of the first cheese-makers to name a blue cheese after their local county was Humphrey Errington in Lanarkshire, who launched his raw milk sheep’s cheese Lanark Blue in 1983.

“It just seemed the right thing to do to name it after where we were,” he says. “But that was before we saw such a huge growth in blue cheeses and local products. It’s amazing how it’s grown. Almost every county now has its own blue cheese.”

The wave of new blue cheeses that has washed over the UK since then is not necessarily all good news, however. Errington admits that sales of Lanark Blue fell considerably in Yorkshire when Shepherd’s Purse – a company that is well-known for its Yorkshire Blue cows’ milk cheese – launched its own sheep’s milk cheese called Mrs Bell’s Blue.

On the plus side, the extra competition has helped improve quality, says Errington’s daughter Selina Cairns, who runs the business now. “We’ve had to work that bit harder and up our game because there is more competition,” she says.

While Britain’s increasingly sophisticated tastebuds and interest in local food have underpinned the rise of county blues, they could not have been created if it wasn’t for improvements in cheese making skills.

Encouraging and controlling the veining in blue cheese is a tricky task that takes time and expertise to master, but the renaissance in British cheese that has taken place since the 1980s means producers are now more confident in their abilities.

Training centres have helped in this regard, giving budding cheese-makers the basic skills and

Cornish Blue put down a marker for the Brits by topping the World Cheese Awards in 2010

understanding they need. Indeed, many of Britain’s new blues were originally based on a recipe taught by cheese tutor Chris Ashby, who has trained lots of Britain’s cheese-makers at Reaseheath College in Cheshire.

“Chris Ashby can take a lot of credit for the rise of blue cheese,” says Richard Hodgson at the Isle of Wight Cheese Co. “She taught me the blue cheese recipe that we first started with, but it’s changed a lot since then. There are lots of different variables in cheese-making – the milk, the cultures, the time and temperature – which means a recipe is just a starting point. Every cheese develops its own character over time.”

The popularity of Ashby’s blue cheese recipe might explain why many new blues in Britain have certain similarities. Most are made with cows’ milk and have a gentle, creamy tang. Stronger blues or cheeses made with goat, sheep or buffalo milk are few and far between, but there are signs that cheese-makers are starting to explore other styles.

Gary Bradshaw, who runs new cheese company Hamm Tun Fine Foods in Northampton, launched the squidgy Northamptonshire Blue, made with cows’ milk, earlier this year, taking inspiration from two of Europe’s greatest cheeses.

“It has a moist Gorgonzola-style texture, but it’s also quite open, like Roquefort, with pockets of blue and green mould rather than veining,” he says. “I’m struggling to keep up with demand at the moment.

Everyone used to ask for Stilton, but people now

The ‘squidgy’ newcomer Northamptonshire Blue combines elements of Gorgonzola and Roquefort

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BRITISH REGIONAL BLUES Oxford Blue Developed by Robert Pouget (a French baron no less) in 1994 as a cheese to rival Gorgonzola and Dolcelatte, Oxford Blue was originally only available in local shops (and at Oxford University) but soon became a national hit. Moist and creamy with aromatic, spicy notes, the cheese was initially made for the Oxford Cheese Company by a Stilton producer and latterly a cheese-maker in Wales. It is matured in Oxford for around four months.

Five other regional blues to try Strathdon Blue Made by Rory Stone of Highland Fine Cheeses in Tain, this pasteurised cows’ milk cheese is luscious, mellow and aromatic. Milder than Stilton with a savoury, salty tang, it is wonderfully creamy and rich with a touch of spice. www.hf-cheeses.com

www.oxfordfinefood.com

Dorset Blue Vinny Mike Davies resurrected a 300-yearold local cheese recipe in the 1980s to create this unpasteurised blue made with skimmed milk. Aged for 12-14 weeks, the cheese changes throughout the year, but is typically hard, crumbly and nutty. Serve with Dorset Knob biscuits. www.dorsetblue.com

Devon Blue Robin Congdon’s sheep’s milk cheese Beenleigh Blue was originally based on a Roquefort recipe, but has evolved its own unique character. Sister cheese Devon Blue is made with pasteurised cows’ milk and is matured in foil (like Beenleigh) for four months or more. It has a crumbly texture and light, minerally flavour with a subtle tang.

Shropshire Blue One of Britain’s best known county blues was actually invented in Scotland and until recently was only made in Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire. The cheese was first made in the 1970s at the Castle Stuart dairy in Inverness by a cheesemaker who learned his trade making Stilton. Based on a Stilton recipe, it gets its distinctive orange colouring from the addition of a (harmless and tasteless) vegetable colouring called annatto. Stilton producers soon adopted the recipe – Colston Bassett’s Shropshire Blue was voted one of the Top 50 Foods at this year’s Great Taste awards – although the cheese has also recently been made in Shropshire for the first time by the Shropshire Cheese Co. www.colstonbassettdairy.co.uk www.shropshirecheese.co.uk

www.ticklemorecheese.co.uk

understand there are other styles of blue cheese.

They are looking for complex flavours and different textures.”

Back at the Bath Soft Cheese Co, Hugh Padfield thinks we’ll see an even more diverse range of blues as British cheese-makers become more confident and competition intensifies.

“If the blues currently available are too similar, some will die out and newer, different cheeses will crop up,” he says. “I’m sure we will have a wider range of styles over time. The price pressures on dairy farmers are increasing all the time, which means more will look to diversify and invest in artisan cheese.”

Stilton-makers have been warned. The great British blues explosion still has a long way to go. www.isleofwightcheese.co.uk www.isleofmullcheese.co.uk www.cornishcheese.co.uk www.parkfarm.co.uk www.erringtoncheese.co.uk www.shepherdspurse.co.uk www.hammtunfinefoods.co.uk

Rich Hodgson of Isle of Wight Cheese Co credits veteran cheese-making tutor Chris Ashby for the emergence of many quality British blues, like his own multi-award-winning Isle of Wight Blue 14

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Artisan Cheese-making

The generation gain Over the course of 30 years, Scotland’s Errington Cheese has endured a great deal as a standard bearer for raw milk and British blue cheese. Now in the hands of its founder’s daughter, the business is forging a new path with a hard cheese. MICHAEL LANE meets Selina Cairns.

D

rive barely half an hour south of Edinburgh and you’ll find yourself in Scotland’s Southern Uplands. It’s a pretty tranquil place, especially on a Monday morning. As I rattle through the lanes past mistshrouded hill tops and grazing cattle, I find it hard to believe that anything sinister goes on here.

Yet my destination, Walston Braehead Farm, was once the source of great concern to local authorities. In fact, this farm and its proprietor made the national news in the mid ’90s amid allegations of producing “killer cheese”.

After ending up in court, its creator Humphrey Errington was vindicated and the cheese in question – Lanark Blue – was deemed safe to eat and remains so to this day.

Some 20 years on, the unpasteurised ewes’ milk cheese is more famous for being “Scotland’s answer to Roquefort”, Humphrey has retired and his daughter has taken the reins at Errington Cheese.

Since succeeding in 2008, Selina Cairns has been spearheading the business’s growth with a new hard cheese called Corra Linn. Her husband Andrew manages the farm and its flock of 450 (mostly Lacaune) sheep that supply milk for cheesemaking. The farm dairy, run by Selina’s sister-in-law and head cheese-maker Angela Cairns, turns out five varieties in total, three from the ewes’ milk and two from unpasteurised cows’ milk bought locally.

Christened “the Kilt Lifter” by one customer, Lanark Blue actually varies in potency depending on the seasonal variations during milking, which runs from lambing in January until September.

“The milk changes much more in sheep [than cows],” says Selina. “The fat and protein gets really high towards the end of the season so it does affect how the cheese tastes.”

If you pick up some Lanark Blue around Easter time, it will be sweet and fresh. This flavour deepens over time before reaching full power in the

FAMILY AFFAIR: Selina Cairns (centre) runs Errington Cheese with her husband Andrew and head cheese-maker and sister-in-law Angela

cheeses that are released for Christmas and Burns’ Night. For those that don’t like blue cheese, there’s the Tomme-style Lanark White, produced in smaller quantities.

Errington Cheese’s cows’ milk varieties are Maisie’s Kebbuck, similar in style to the seasonal Lanark White and the creamy, slightly spicy Dunsyre Blue, billed as “one of the stronger blue cheeses on the market”.

Although Errington’s blues remain popular (it actually produces more Dunsyre than any other variety), the newcomer Corra Linn has proved a big hit with the cheesemongers of Britain.

Created by Selina and perfected by Angela, the cheese is now made and matured in a dedicated building that was refurbished earlier this year as Errington Cheese needs to produce more of the 6-7kg clothbound truckles to meet demand.

The nutty, sweet cheese was initially developed to accommodate the spring glut of ewes’ milk but it

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artisan cheese-making The newcomer Corra Linn is already on its way to gaining the same status as Errington’s legendary Lanark Blue

has rapidly grown in stature. In Scotland, Glasgow’s George Mewes and Edinburgh’s IJ Mellis are both stockists while, south of the border, La Fromagerie and North Yorkshire’s The Courtyard Dairy are also fans. Neal’s Yard Dairy even visits the farm to personally select its truckles.

This level of success and acclaim was unthinkable during those dark days in the ‘90s.

Selina is still haunted by the reports of her father’s court battle with Clydesdale Council booming out on the radio during bus rides to school. The council’s claim that Lanark Blue contained deadly listeria took its toll on family life and nearly did for the business that Humphrey had steadily built since setting up in 1983. In the end, its legacy has been positive, especially for all the cheese-makers out there working with unpasteurised milk.

“I’ve spoken to some of the young environmental health officers here recently and our case is still brought up when they’re training,” says Selina. “It got us better known but it was not the kind of publicity you would want.”

Despite witnessing the trauma, or perhaps because she did, Selina was more than willing to quit her job managing construction projects at Edinburgh Airport to take over when her father decided to retire.

“My dad’s quite a determined character,” she says. “A lot people would have given up, so I couldn’t have seen it not continue.”

Despite the acclaim for its sheep’s milk cheeses, Errington produces more of the cows’ milk Dunsyre Blue than any other variety

She admits that the handover was difficult for both of them and Humphrey’s shadow as a cheese pioneer still looms large – even now people still address orders to him – but their relationship is good. She regularly picks up the phone for advice and he frequently visits, mainly to check on his small herd of Galloways at the farm.

Though the move to the countryside has afforded Selina and Andrew Cairns the flexibility to spend time with their young family, the work itself is harder and more consuming than their old jobs.

“The main thing to concentrate on is actually improving your cheese all the time,” says Selina. “You can maybe have it as you want it for a few weeks but it never stays like that. Things change.”

Most aspects of production are up for review but there are some fixed traditions: milk moved straight from the parlour at 7am, freeze-dried starter cultures and, most importantly, only vegetarian rennet is used. It is, of course, derived from that Scottish totem, the thistle.

However, the addition of a paddle in the new Corra Linn cheese vat and a mechanical piercer for the blue cheeses has softened some of the more labour-intensive processes, even if Humphrey was a little disapproving of the latter.

Various courses and assistance from expert consultants Val Bines and Paul Thomas have helped to improve the techniques being used in the dairy every day by Angela and the four staff. In particular, the introduction of a pH meter has improved the consistency of the cheeses.

“The way it was done with previous cheesemakers was by time, which isn’t a good way to to do it,” says Selina, “because, some days, the milk does take longer to develop the right acidity so you’re maybe moulding or running the whey off too early.”

Monthly visits from Neal’s Yard Dairy have taught Angela and Selina more about grading and maturing the various cheeses, too. This means that retailers and consumers are getting cheeses that are at their best.

“The way we used to sell the Corra Linn, and

the blue cheeses for that matter, was just by age, so we’d sell the oldest ones first,” says Selina.

“Whereas now we’re realising that a lot of cheese takes longer. Some will take an extra three months, so the cheese you made three months earlier is actually more ripe for whatever reason.”

At the other end of production, Andrew and Selina have been making changes to the way the farm runs to enhance the quality of the milk coming from their flock. After several years of buying supplemental feed, they are moving to a system that sees them feed the sheep only what can be grown in the Uplands’ climate – grass, hay and some barley for energy.

“The cheese wasn’t consistent in the past whereas now we’ve got a lot more control over it,” says Selina. “I think that’s where we’ve fallen down before.”

With the product in hand and the street cred piling up, Selina still feels that there is more market out there for the Errington range and more potential for Scottish cheese to grow. Some customers, she says, only take cheese around Burns’ Night and Errington’s location in a lesser-known and less-visited part of Scotland makes it harder to attract attention.

“What you can struggle with is that people buy cheese because it’s from a certain place or it’s in fashion,” she says. “If you’re on a Scottish island, you’re sorted, aren’t you?”

She is hopeful that the Government’s launch of a Scottish Dairy Brand will boost consumer awareness of cheese-makers like Errington. After all, it was a truckle of Corra Linn that First Minister Nicola Sturgeon held aloft at the launch event.

Selina is also one of many artisan cheesemakers forming a Scottish producer group, similar to the Specialist Cheesemakers Association, that could jointly promote products and protect cheese-makers from any environmental health problems (the thought of another over-zealous official still worries her).

A spot in a forthcoming James Martin TV show should also shine more of a light on the business and the emergence of Corra Linn, even if Selina cringes as she recalls the film crew’s visit.

She may not get in the dairy as much as she would like but Selina’s recent forays look like they may yield a new cheese for the line-up. During my visit, she is keen to show off her latest experiment – a cheese washed in Scotch – but the results have thus far been disappointing. There have also been fruitless efforts to revive a cheese called Humphrey’s Revenge, a Gorgonzola Dolce-style blue that was accidently created by a previous cheese-maker botching a batch of Dunsyre Blue.

One of Selina’s experiments has come good and she hopes that a prototype lactic sheep’s cheese, in the style of a French Perail, will go into production after some positive taste tests on selected customers. Given the new facility, there’s also still more capacity for Corra Linn and the possibility of distinct age profiles being developed.

It may be all action in the dairy but it seems Weston Braehead Farm and Selina are again in tune with those peaceful surroundings.

“I feel quite settled and I don’t feel I’ll ever want to do anything else and move,” she says.

“Sometimes when you’re working for somebody else, you think the grass is greener. I don’t have that now.”

“My dad’s quite a determined character. a lot of people would have given up, so I couldn’t have seen the business not continue.”

www.erringtoncheese.co.uk

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food & travel

Flights of fancy Jetting off on holiday? There’s no need to leave your passion for cheese behind you. PATRICK McGUIGAN explores 10 great cheese destinations, from the US to South Africa – plus a few that won’t require a passport.

Yorkshire Wensleydale Cheese Experience Carrigbyrne Farmhouse Cheese, Co Wexford

Discover French fromage in the heart of Paris.

Down on the farm in Ireland Ireland punches above its weight in the international cheese arena thanks to a vibrant artisan cheese sector.

There are currently more than 50 farmhouse cheese-makers in the country, producing over 150 varieties, but most are closed to the public. However, the Discover Farmhouse Cheese initiative, partly funded by the EU, means many will br opening their doors from April to July 2016 to host tours, tastings and talks.

Free to attend (although booking is essential), the programme allows the public to see first-hand how artisan cheese is made, from the cows in the field via the cheesemaking room to the maturing cellars. Just as importantly, they will be able to meet the producers themselves and learn just how much skill, knowledge and dedication is need to make good cheese.

Farms already confirmed to be taking part include Glenilen in Cork and O’Briens in Limerick.

www.wensleydale.co.uk

The School of Artisan Food

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www.parisbymouth.com/paris-food-wine-tours/

www.discoverfarmhousecheese.ie

Velvet underground: the caves of Roquefort

Caves Roquefort Société by D. Martin

Fancy yourself as the next Jamie Montgomery or Charles Martell? Then you need to visit the School of Artisan Food in Nottinghamshire, which runs a huge range of cheese-making courses for the public and professionals.

Set up in 2009 to help protect and promote artisan food skills in the UK, the school is based at the Welbeck Estate, which is also home to Stichelton Dairy, a farm shop, brewery and bakery.

There’s a real mix of courses for enthusiasts and experienced cheese-makers, from a two-hour tasting session on matching beer and cheese (£35) to a two-week course for established producers (£1,995).

English language website Paris By Mouth’s status as a foodie hub in the French capital is underpinned by walking tours and workshops with a strong focus on cheese.

Conducted in English, the three-hour food tours of different Parisian neighbourhoods always include a cheese shop where you can learn about French cheese with tastings and talks.

But serious turophiles should book themselves onto the cheese and wine workshop at a swish tasting room in the Aligre market neighbourhood.

Hosted by founder of Paris By Mouth and cheese high priestess Meg Zimbeck, the workshop explores 10 or more cheeses and at least six wines from different regions of the country over more than three hours. Arrive hungry.

Topics that are covered include where the flavour in cheese and wine comes from, the importance of terroir and why some wine and cheese pairings work better than others.

The walking tours and the workshop cost €95 each.

Mia Nakano

In news that will get Wallace and Gromit scrabbling for their crackers, the Wensleydale Creamery in the Yorkshire Dales opened a swanky new visitor centre earlier this year.

The interactive family experience includes a new museum exploring the history of Yorkshire Wensleydale, a children’s entertainment area and a viewing gallery of the creamery itself, where you can watch the cheese being made.

There’s no shortage of places to try the creamy crumbly cheese either, with a shop, café and restaurant.

The creamery plans to build on its claim of being the only Wensleydale cheese-maker left in Yorkshire by adding further attractions for the public in 2016.

Tickets cost £2.50.

The secret to Roquefort’s velvety blue-green veins is a particular strain of Penicillium, which grows in caves in the Aveyron region of southern France. Legend has it the fungus was first discovered by a young shepherd, who was distracted by a pretty girl and left his lunch – a sheep’s curd baguette – in a cave. On his return a few months later, he found that it had turned blue and tasted delicious, and so Roquefort was born.

Under the terms of its EU Protected Designation of Origin status, the cheese is still aged in the same network of caves today.

Roquefort Société – the largest of France’s Roquefort producers – has opened up its maturing rooms to visitors and has added a light show, film and museum, but it’s the atmospheric caves filled with rows of cheeses that are the highlight of the hour-long tour. It concludes with a tasting of three different styles of Roquefort.

Entry price is €5 and visitors are advised to wear warm clothes.

It’s cold in the caves. www.visite-roquefort-societe.com/en

Gouda Cheese Market: sealed with a slap The hometown of Holland’s most famous cheese becomes a carnival of ‘kaas’ every Thursday morning during the spring and summer, with local farmers bringing huge wheels of orange gouda to sell outside the city hall.

Delivered by horse and laid out in the square, the cheeses are the focus of some serious haggling between cheese-makers and traders clad in traditional outfits. The deal is done with a bizarre but good natured series of hand slaps followed by a handshake.

It’s a jolly event, with plenty of cheese tasters passed around the watching public, plus a chance to see how much you weigh in cheese, and stalls selling every style of gouda imaginable.

A museum and huge two-day festival of gouda (including what surely must be the world’s only cheese rave) in October are further reasons to visit. www.goudakaasstad.nl/en

La Maison du Gruyère

Surrounded by hills and mountains dotted with cows, the House of Gruyère is the perfect starting point for discovering the story behind Switzerland’s greatest cheese.

A working dairy where unpasteurised milk from local farms is delivered twice a day and visitors can watch the cheesemakers in action, the centre is also home to an interactive exhibition.

The sound of mooing cows and mountain streams greet visitors to the centre with a section where you can smell the different flowers, herbs and grasses that gives the cheese such a complex flavour. Photos, games, videos and exhibits you can touch all add to the sensory experience, as does a tasting of three cheeses at different stages of maturity.

The shop and restaurant, which does a seriously good fondue, are also fun, but the real draw is watching Gruyère AOP being made large in copper vats, while the cathedral-like maturing room is an atmospheric backdrop for a cheesy selfie.

Crack the history of Parmigiano-Reggiano

The museum devoted to Italy’s king of cheeses is a surprisingly humble affair, but no less interesting for it.

Part of the Castle Meli-Lupi in Soragna, near Parma, the circular building that houses the museum was a working cheese dairy in the 19th century and has been painstakingly restored to former glories with original equipment and maturing rooms.

The history of Parmigiano-Reggiano, which stretch back to Roman times, is explored through documents, photographs, artefacts and multimedia exhibits, plus a tasting at the end.

The museum is one of several on the same site set up to celebrate Italian food, including tomatoes and salami. It’s also worth organising a trip to see how Parmesan is made today. Many of the dairies and maturing houses host tours and tastings, although reservations are essential. There’s a list with contact details on the website. www.parmigianoreggiano.com/where

www.lamaisondugruyere.ch

Explore the Jura mountains with ‘les Routes du Comté’

With a history stretching back more than a thousand years, Comté cheese has a fascinating story that curd nerds can discover for themselves by following ‘les Routes du Comté’.

Published by the local tourist board and available to download online, the guide provides suggested routes around the Jura mountains in eastern France where the cheese is made, with information on farms, cheese-makers, specialist maturers, museums and restaurants.

Highlights include the 19th century Fort Saint-Antoine, which has been converted into a huge cellar for maturing thousands of wheels of Comté by affineur Marcel Petite. The hour-and-a-half tour, which can be booked via the local tourist office (contact@malbuisson-les-lacs.com), includes a tasting area and 3D film.

A visit to the Maison du Comté is also a must. The museum helps visitors explore the cheese through films, interactive sensory exhibits and a tasting at the end. Tickets are €5. www.comte.com/visiter/savourez-le-temps-sur-les-routes-du-comte

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FOOD & TRAVEL High Weald Dairy cheese classes City of London cheese walk

On the cheese trail in Vermont

Taking a vine leaf out of California’s book, which has turned wine tourism into a multi-million dollar business, the Vermont Cheese Council has published a cheese trail, which takes foodies on a tour of the state’s best producers Available in traditional paper form and as a Google Map which can be downloaded to a smartphone, the route covers cheese-makers that produce everything from cheddar and gorgonzola to feta and chèvre, many of whom offer tours and tastings.

The visitor centre at Cabot Creamery, which makes an excellent cloth-bound cheddar, is a highlight, and feta producer Three Shepherds Cheese in Warren offers popular cheese-making classes.

Beautiful countryside, especially in the autumn when the landscape is a riot of reds and golds, add to the experience.

Alternatively go in July when the Vermont Cheesemakers Festival attracts cheese lovers from all over the US.

Learn how cheese has shaped British history, culture, politics and even architecture on this fascinating tour of the City of London, with plenty of cheese-tasting along the way.

A collaboration between Sue Cloke’s excellent shop Cheese at Leadenhall and history tour guides CurioCity, the walk takes in everything from why Samuel Pepys buried a wheel of Parmesan during the Great Fire of London to visiting a skyscraper nicknamed The Cheesegrater. It ends with a tasting and cheese quiz at Cloke’s wine bar, which spills out into the historic Leadenhall market.

The price is £35 and it lasts around two and half hours. www.cheeseatleadenhall.co.uk/tours

www.vtcheese.com

San Francisco Cheese School: eating is learning Cheese is hot stuff in the US at the moment and we’re not talking slices of Kraft melted on burgers. A new generation of cool young makers and cheesemongers has made it almost as trendy as craft beer, with restaurants, magazines and festivals dedicated to all things dairy.

One of the best introductions to this exciting scene is to take a class at the Cheese School of San Francisco. Set up in 2006 by former cheesemonger Kiri Fisher, the school runs a huge range of classes led by some of the US’s leading cheese brains.

The short two-hour courses start at $69 and include options such as matching cheese and cider and exploring the cheeses of Piedmont. There are also practical cheese-making classes and farm tours at some of California’s best producers.

If your heart goes gooey at the thought of mac ‘n’ cheese you can even take a course investigating the best cheeses and recipes for creating America’s favourite comfort food. www.thecheeseschool.com

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The great British cheese revival owes much to the pioneering spirit of Neal’s Yard Dairy, which has long championed artisan producers in its London stores.

Attending one of its cheese classes, which are held upstairs in the Borough Market shop, is a must for serious cheese fans. Topics change with the season, but highlights include the ‘science of taste’, which explores the principles of wine and cheese matching through unorthodox pairings such as Milleens washed rind cheese with sake.

At £70, the two-hour sessions are not cheap, but the quality of the cheese and the fun you will have are worth every penny. www.nealsyarddairy.co.uk

Cheddar Gorge Cheese Co visitor centre

Cheddar is made everywhere from Australia to the US, but there is only one company still producing it in the Somerset village from which the cheese originates. The Cheddar Gorge Cheese Co hand-makes a traditional clothbound cheddar using unpasteurised milk from local farms, and welcomes people to its premises.

Visitors can watch the various stages of production through a viewing window, including the ‘cheddaring’ process when blocks of curd are stacked on top of each other. There’s also a film and a chance to sample the cheese at the tasting bar.

Admission is £1.95 for adults. Don’t miss the stunningly beautiful Cheddar Gorge nearby, where the company still matures some of its cheese in limestone caves. www.cheddargorgecheeseco.co.uk

Cheese and wine nirvana in the Western Cape

Long known for its wine, which has been made on the slopes of the mighty Paarl mountain for more than 300 years, Fairview has also become a bucket-list destination for cheese buffs.

The farm produces over 20 artisan varieties using goats’ milk from its own herd and Jersey cows’ milk from a nearby farm, and also sells other cheeses from the local area. Visitors to the tasting room are greeted by a unique pod concept. Each one offers a different selection of six wines and matching Fairview cheeses.

Alternatively, head to the Goatshed, the farm’s Mediterranean-style restaurant, which offers a stunning array of cheese boards. Fairview recently became the first carbon neutral cheese dairy on the African continent, so you can feel virtuous as you tuck in. www.fairview.co.za

22

Neal’s Yard Dairy

Mark and Sarah Hardy know their cheddars from their chèvres after many years making award-winning cows’, sheep’s and goats’ milk cheeses at High Weald Dairy in West Sussex. Keen to pass on their knowledge to the public, the couple set up the Cheese Barn and started running classes in 2011, which have been selling out ever since.

The one-day course teaches you how to make simple cheeses at home with kitchen equipment, but also includes a tour of the organic farm and dairy to see how cheese is made on a larger scale. Lunch is included in the £155 price of the course, as is a tutored tasting of five to eight different styles of cheese. www.highwealddairy.co.uk

The Scottish Cheese Trail Take the high road (and the low road) to discover Scotland’s fantastic artisan cheeses with this new map of the country’s best producers, retailers and restaurants.

Put together by food writer and cheese expert Wendy Barrie, the online trail can be used by cheese lovers to create an itinerary of destinations with many dairies offering behind the scenes tours and tastings.

There’s St Andrew’s Farmhouse cheese in Pittenweem, which has a viewing gallery where visitors can watch the company’s raw milk cheddar being made and a coffee shop with stunning sea views, or explore the cheese counter at the excellent farm shop Whitmuir the Organic Place near Edinburgh. www.scottishfoodguide.scot/ scottishcheesetrail

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23

goats’ milk cheese

Have the Brits given chèvre a shake-up?

Once treated with near-contempt in France, British goats’ cheeses have come on in leaps and bounds. To see how they stack up today, BOB FARRAND invited two French experts to a blind-tasting of cheeses from both sides of the Channel at top London food hall Partridges.

T

wenty-five years ago, a French goats’ cheese expert advised me she did not know of a single similar specialist in the UK. “The British don’t have enough goats’ milk cheeses to taste properly,” she claimed, “and that which you make is mostly inedible.”

Her chauvinism was predictable, but her advice was well directed, as she was helping me select cheese experts capable of judging several hundred goats’ milk cheeses entered into the World Cheese Awards.

On the basis that most of that year’s entries originated from France, she may have had a point. But that was a quarter of a century ago. Nowadays, British artisan cheese-making has changed beyond recognition.

In 1995, most goats’ milk cheese found in the best delicatessens and food halls were made across the Channel. They were mainly fresh, light and lemony-acidic in flavour or firm-bodied and aggressive, delivering a brutal assault on our olfactory senses equivalent to hugging a billy goat with halitosis.

Fast-forward to 2015 and two things have happened. Firstly, specialist cheese retailers in this country have upped their game dramatically and the quality of French goats’ milk cheeses on offer is much wider and more representative of the best their artisan makers produce.

Secondly, with so much good stuff coming in from France, our home-based artisan makers

realised they had to up their game too.

Setting out to compare some of today’s British and French options, I was unable to track down my French goats’ cheese expert of 20 years back. But I was able to recruit two French men, each boasting an educated cheese palate and familiar with all manner of ‘fromage de chèvre.’

They were Jerome Reignier, who is a seasoned World Cheese Awards judge and has represented French cheese producer Monts & Terroirs in the UK for some 15 years, and Fabrice Beillevare, the owner of a UK based wholesale business specialising in French cheeses made by small artisan producers.

Partridges MD John Shepherd kindly allowed us a corner of his Duke of York Square shop early in November in which to blind taste a variety of cheeses: young and fresh, mature and forceful but most importantly, a mix of French and English.

Partridges’ cheese buyer Androulla Lambrou sourced most of the cheeses and each was numbered so none of the tasters, including myself, knew their origin. We also involved another Frenchman Partridges wine buyer Francois Ginther and a handful of Partridges’ customers in the tasting, asking them if they were able to tell the English goat cheeses from the French.

All images: Isabelle Plasschaert

“With so much good stuff coming in from France, our home-based artisan makers had to up their game too”

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goodcheese 2015-16

• Bob Farrand is founder of the World Cheese Awards and chairman of the Guild of Fine Food.

TICKLEMORE

What is it? A light, delicate cheese in the shape of a kitchen colander, made by Sharpham in Devon using pasteurised milk and vegetarian rennet. It has a mild, fresh, sweet taste.

Tasting results: The cheese started very well – crumbly hard texture that broke down easily in the mouth – but the flavour let it down: a little flat, one dimensional and devoid of complexity. The rind was stale and killed the freshness of the paste.

@Ą +Yďò DÊďòY­Ã

What is it?

Unpasteurised milk and mainly lactic coagulation is used to create this log-shaped cheese with a long straw running through its centre.

Maturation varies from 10 days to four weeks, by which time the ash coating on the rind is dry and the paste is smooth and fine, delivering a balanced, round flavour with hints of salt, sourness and walnut nuttiness.

Tasting results: All agreed this cheese was much too young. Although the finish was good, it lacked the complexity expected, and needed another 10 days maturation at least.

Tor

What is it? A soft, smooth, ash-coated pyramid with a geotrichum rind and intense lemony freshness, made by White Lake in Somerset with unpasteurised milk and vegetarian rennet.

Tasting results: I recognised this as a cheese I regularly enjoy. The smooth interior paste is clean and pleasantly goaty but we all detected a touch of salt from the ash coated rind, followed by a hint of ammoniac burn at the back of the throat, suggesting either it was supplied a little over the top or suffered in storage. The cheese is presented in a thick plastic film and Fabrice suggested this may prevent it from maturing properly. “This is a good cheese but the producer might like to try a different packaging” he advised.

@ ¶¶ ¬øďòª ò

What is it? A small, disc-shaped raw milk cheese with an ash coating. Matured for four weeks to give a pleasant goaty aroma and salty and sour flavours counter-balanced with hints of sweetness.

Tasting results: Well made, with a good firm texture and an interesting and authentic goaty flavour. Not too salty – good hint of nuttiness in the middle of the palate. Just the tiniest hint of ammonia on the finish, which the judges enjoyed, saying, ‘That’s what we look for’.

They were convinced it was English!

Crottin de Chavignol

What is it? A small, cylindrical cheese, enjoyed at different stages of maturity. When young, white and fresh it has little to offer but as it hardens and the rind darkens, the aroma acquires the pungency of goats and the flavours grow robust, meaty and often challenging.

Tasting results: Good aroma and the flavour was pleasant but lacked the depth and complexity the French would expect from a cheese like this. Once in the mouth it should melt into a soft creamy consistency – this didn’t, and was too dry. Our panel thought it was English.

Innes Clifton Leaf

What is it?

Essentially a smaller version of Innes Cheese’s Bosworth Leaf, made using unpasteurised milk and wrapped in a chestnut leaf.

Matured for up to three weeks, the winey flavour from the leaf balances the lemon-fresh

notes from the cheese.

Tasting results: Jerome was convinced this was a French farmhouse cheese, and loved it. Fabrice and Francois agreed it must be French, but thought it was just a little too advanced in its maturity, as the finish delivered a slightly unpleasant bitterness.

Dò ď : òtª

What is it? A raw milk cheese made in the Orne region of France, it has a thin, natural, ashen bluegrey wrinkled rind. The pure white paste is flexible, creamy and refined, although the aroma is truly of the goat.

Tasting results: All agreed this was “very French” and presented the characteristic goatiness expected: quite farmy, with good complex flavours. Very good indeed.

<ď­tµ ø ¡ÊYĄø’

What is it? Cheddar-style, made using pasteurised milk and matured for six months for a luxurious, buttery flavour and almond nuttiness on the finish.

Tasting results: Good, buttery and very clean.

Everyone agreed it had to be a pasteurised milk cheese, and English – very much a cheddar style, but most agreeable. Our French judges thought it excellent.

Rosary

What is it? Made by Rosary Goats’ Cheese using pasteurised milk, this is fresh and creamy with a mousse-like texture, natural acidity and just a hint of salt.

Tasting results: We all loved this. Young, fresh and lemony with only a hint of saltiness, and very clean on the finish. For a fresh cheese, Jerome was surprised there was such a good level of flavour. A very good cheese that the team spotted as English.

OY¶ ÃtYě

What is it? Made in the province of Berry, this pyramid-shaped, ash-coated cheese is matured for around three weeks and can be made from raw or pasteurised milk.

The young cheese is fresh and delightfully citric, but with age, it develops a nutty taste characteristic of French goats’ milk cheeses.

Tasting results: This was recognised immediately and we all agreed it presented as a very good example – pleasing texture, light, not cloying and with a fabulously long complex finish.

Golden Cross

What is it? An unpasterised milk logshaped cheese with a velvet-like white mould covering a thin layer of charcoal.

When young, it is fresh and full of citrus notes that develop into deeper complexity with age.

Tasting results: At first glance none of the judges were sure if this was English or French, and on tasting they remained unsure. Good crust, and the paste inside had started to break down well, although the centre was perhaps a little under-ripe.

“This needs at least 10 days more,” commented Fabrice, “but it’s a good cheese.”

goodcheese 2015-16

25

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GOATS’ MILK CHEESE Pouligny Saint Pierre

What is it?

A raw-milk pyramid-shaped cheese that ages over four weeks into a golden-brown colour, with a paste that is pure white and fine in texture. The initial flavour is an exquisite sourness with hints of salt, followed by a sweet finish.

Each of these flavours grows in intensity with age.

Tasting results: We knew this had to be French, and guessed it was raw milk. It had a clean, lemony finish, but not too acidic. While the team would have liked a little more depth of flavour, the affinage was spot on, presenting the cheese with a good, creamy paste and a lovely freshness on the finish.

Trois Cornes Blancs

What is it? A triangular, raw milk cheese from Poitou, usually eaten young and fresh when the acidity in the milk shines through. If aged, it acquires a deeper, goaty aroma and flavour.

Tasting results: Creamy, nutty, perfect texture – Fabrice knew this cheese and its maker well. At five weeks maturation, this example was spot on, with no hint of ammonia, delivering a clean, complex finish. “A cheese this good can only be made using raw milk,” said Jerome.

Rachel

What is it? A semi soft cheese with a washed rind made

by White Lake using unpasteurised milk, giving a sweet, medium flavour with just a hint of nuttiness.

Tasting results: The entire team loved this – great depth of flavour with a long, pleasing finish. Fabrice described the paste as almost ‘aerated in texture.’ All three guessed it was English, but all rated it even better than the goats’ milk cheddar they had tasted earlier.

Banon

What is it? A small, circular, mountain cheese made using unpasteurised milk.

This pungent soft variety is dipped in eau de vie, the colourless fruit brandy, and wrapped in a chestnut leaf, and the fine, white paste yields the flavours of both.

Tasting results: Wrongly judged by the panel to be English, this example was bone-dry on the crust, and yeasty. Jerome claimed it reminded him of the dry paper-like communion wafers of his childhood.

It was dirty and goaty, and no one cared for it

Innes Bosworth Leaf

What is it? Made by Staffordshire’s Innes Cheese using unpasteurised milk and wrapped in a chestnut leaf, this white moulded variety is matured for up to three weeks. The hint of winey flavour from the leaf balances the lemon fresh notes from the cheese.

Tasting results: Our French judges immediately spotted this as English – and all agreed: “It’s very good.” Jerome commented this was very much a typical British take on a goats’ cheese, but using raw milk.

It had a wonderful creamy texture with good lemony notes on the finish, but still managed to be “true to the animal”.

What is it? A raw milk cheese made by monks at a monastery 50 miles west of Montpelier in southeast France. It melts slowly in the mouth, releasing the aromas of thyme and rosemary – typical aromatic herbs from this region that form part of the goats’ diet.

Tasting results: Good and clearly very French.

Jerome detected intriguing herby back notes, and Fabrice explained the cheese is made in a region of France where goats eat wild thyme, which comes through on the milk and into the cheese.

A hint of ammonia on the rind but the paste is fantastic with gorgeous flavours.

Ragstone

What is it? A logshaped, unpasteurised cheese with a creamy white mould, delivering savoury, lactic notes from a lemony smooth paste. Made by Neal’s Yard Creamery in Herefordshire Tasting results: All agreed this was a good cheese, if a little young. The flavour was clean, with good depth but the paste inside the rind needed to soften more with longer maturation. A very good cheese.

Innes Bosworth Ash

What is it? A log-shaped, unpasteurised cheese, rolled in salted ash, covering a creamy white paste that delivers clean, goaty flavours with a hint of rosemary. From Staffordshire’s Innes Cheese.

Tasting results: The maturation on this example was clearly not right. The texture was creamy but the finish was far too bitter and acidic. The French team claimed it as one of their own, describing it as “just like a cheese you might buy in a French supermarket – unripe and not particularly good.”

The Verdict

OUR TASTING PANEL

Fabrice Beillevare, UK-based importer/wholesaler of French artisan cheeses

St Nicol de la Dalmerie

Jerome Reignier, UK representative of French cheese producer Monts & Terroirs

Bob Farrand, founder-chairman of the Guild of Fine Food and the World Cheese Awards

Gallic chauvinism about English goats’ milk cheese is dead and buried – the Frenchmen on my tasting panel were fair in mind and in palate.

Cheese produced from the milk of goats grazing England’s rich pastures is the equal of, and in some instances better than, those from across La Manche.

Overall, flavours are cleaner, more complex and more enjoyable than I recall from two decades ago – although that may well be a trick of the years.

The more important factor is the skill of the retailer and wholesaler. Several cheeses we tried were either too young or too old. In France, most specialist cheesemongers are also affineurs: they ripen their cheeses in cellars, often underneath their shops so that moment each one is sold, it is perfectly ripe.

A few specialist shops here at home ripen their cheeses in house, but most rely on their wholesaler to deliver in peak condition. On the evidence of our tasting, this is not always the case.

goodcheese 2015-16

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goodcheese 2015-16

additive cheese

Farmhouse cheddar queen Mary Quicke (pictured) overcame her aversion to additives when she successfully launched a variety subtley flavoured with elderflower petals. Balancing the flavour of the cheese and its added ingredient is essential, she says.

THE LESS, THE MORE? Gimmicky products like Christmas Dinner Cheddar have made aficionados turn their noses up at all additive cheeses. Yet there’s a noble tradition of enhancing artisan varieties with herbs, spices, truffles and more. PATRICK McGUIGAN sorts the tacky ‘cheeses with bits’ from the classy combos.

S

ocks and sandals, fingernails and blackboards, toothpaste and orange juice.

There are certain things that just don’t go together.

But try telling that to some British cheesemakers, who regularly defy common sense (and decency) by cramming as many inappropriate ingredients into cheese as their overheated imaginations can think of.

Cranberries and chilli powder are just the tip of the flavoured cheese iceberg. There are now cheddars with bits of sticky toffee pudding swirled through them, Wensleydale studded with chocolate drops (that look more like rodent droppings) and even a cheese “enhanced” with a fragrant blast of Thai curry.

These are minor offenders, however, compared to Pilgrim’s Choice, which trampled on the festive spirit a few years ago with a ‘Christmas Dinner’ cheddar made with turkey flavouring, sprouts and carrots.

Such crimes against food are part of the

reason why so-called additive cheeses have a bad reputation in the UK. But not all flavoured cheeses should be tarred with the same brush. There are notable exceptions, which can hold their heads high on any cheeseboard.

Continental Europe has a long and respected tradition of adding ingredients to cheese, from Gouda with cumin to Pecorino made with truffles or saffron. There is also a venerable practice of rolling cheeses in herbs or wrapping them in leaves. The Corsican sheep’s milk cheese Fleur de Maquis, which is coated in thyme and rosemary, is one of France’s great cheeses.

Then there are the ‘drunken’ cheeses of Italy, which are matured under piles of grape pomace left over from winemaking or even soaked in the wine itself to imbue them with

wonderful fruity, boozy flavours.

Cheesemonger and wholesaler Paxton & Whitfield sells Testun al Barolo, a mixed sheep and goat’s milk cheese from Piedmont that is topped with Barolo grape must, while its Moliterno al Tartufo pecorino from Sardinia is marbled with flecks of black truffles.

The retailer draws the line, however, at modern

“I’d allowed my hostility to those gimmicky products to stop me offering what are some really good flavour-added cheeses” Ian Wellens, The Cheese Shed

goodcheese 2015-16

29

­Ę ò­Ą­øª YĘÊďò¬Y tª ø ø ĄÊ Ąòě Dartmoor Chilli Made by Rachel Stephens in Devon, this spicy version of the popular Curworthy mild cows’ milk cheese incorporates flecks of fresh chilli sourced from the Dartmoor Chilli Farm. Harvested in the autumn and frozen by Stephens to be used year round, the chillis are added to the curd during the cheese-making process. www.thecheeseshed.com

Rosary goat’s cheese with garlic & herb Named Supreme Champion at the British Cheese Awards in 2014, Rosary is a light fluffy goat’s log, flavoured with garlic and rolled in herbs. It is made by Chris and Clare Moody on the Hampshire-Wiltshire border with milk from their own herd of goats, which helps give the cheese a fresh, creamy flavour and mousse-like texture. www.rosarygoatscheese.co.uk

Cornish gouda with fenugreek Hailing from the Netherlands where cumin is a commonly added to gouda, Giel Spierings is a champion of flavoured cheeses. At his family farm near Polruan in South West Cornwall he adds everything from Italian herbs to honey and clover to his cheeses, but it is the gouda with Fenugreek that is arguably the best. The seed adds a remarkable nuttiness to the cheese as it matures for around eight months. www.cornishgouda.co.uk

Wild Garlic Yarg Famous for its nettlecovered cheese Cornish Yarg, Lynher Dairies near Truro also makes a version coated in wild garlic leaves, which are foraged from the local countryside. The cheese itself has similarities with a young Caerphilly. Light, crumbly, lactic and zesty, it takes on a lovely mellow garlic flavour from the leaves, which never overpowers. Named the Best Flavour Added cheese at the British Cheese Awards in 2014.

The Cheese Society

www.paxtonandwhitfield.co.uk/

Fowlers Sage Derby One of England’s oldest cheeses, Sage Derby has been made by Fowlers of Earlswood in Warwickshire since at least 1840.

The 14th generation of the family still make it today using traditional methods. A layer of sage runs through the firm bodied cheese, which is matured for around nine months, giving it a fresh herby flavour. www.fowlerscheesemakers.co.uk

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goodcheese 2015-16

blended products. These are made by taking a ready-made (often lower grade) cheese, chopping it up into small pieces and mixing it with the added ingredient, before it is all squished back together again in a solid, reformed lump. The process is commonly used to manufacture the kind of wacky ‘cheeses with bits in’ that line supermarket shelves.

“We don’t sell mushed up cheese with things bunged into it,” says Paxton’s MD Ros Windsor. “With our cheeses the ingredients are added to the curd at the start of the process.

They’re not about getting cheap cheese and adding something to mask the flavour. If you’re buying an additive cheese you should be able to taste the cheese and not just the additive.”

British flavoured cheeses that take this artisanal approach include Sharpham Rustic Chive & Garlic, which is made with unpasteurised Jersey cows’ milk and fresh puréed garlic in Devon, and Wild Garlic Yarg, made by Lynher Dairies in Cornwall: a zesty, lactic cows’ milk cheese wrapped in wild garlic leaves foraged from local woodland.

“Wild Garlic Yarg is superb,” says Windsor.

“The cheese is light and crumbly and the wild garlic permeates through just enough. As much attention goes into the combination of flavours as the individual elements.”

Achieving a balance between the flavour of the base cheese and the supplementary ingredient is the secret of a good additive cheese, says cheesemonger Andy Swinscoe at The Courtyard Dairy in Yorkshire.

“If it masks the flavour of the cheese and becomes too strong so all you’re tasting is the additive, then for me it’s not a cheese, it’s more of a gimmick,” he says.

The Courtyard Dairy does not have space on its small counter for flavoured cheeses and Swinscoe admits he is a “purist” at heart, preferring to stick to unadulterated varieties. That said, he admits to being a big admirer of a soft, wrinkly-rinded French goats’ cheese called Lingot St Nicolas, which is supplied by affineur Mons. Made by an orthodox priest who lives and works in a monastery up a mountain in the Languedoc-Rousillon region, the curd is infused with a few drops of thyme oil extracted from the wild herbs that grow all around.

“To me it doesn’t feel like an additive cheese, because it’s beautifully balanced and everything is done by hand in the same place,” says Swinscoe.

“The goat flavour comes through, but also the thyme. The flavours marry together really well.”

Another cheesemonger who has come round to the idea of additive cheeses is Ian Wellens at online retailer The Cheese Shed. Up until around 18 months ago, the site only stocked one or two because he felt flavoured cheeses shouldn’t be taken seriously.

“It was probably received opinion, which I think comes from cheeses with things like Christmas pudding in them,” he admits. “I’d allowed my hostility to those gimmicky products to stop me offering what are some really good flavouradded cheeses.”

Now the site stocks

a much fuller range, including Truffler from the Somerset Cheese Co, a cheddar flavoured with truffles, and Dartmoor Chilli made using fresh chillis from the Dartmoor Chilli Farm. The retailer also works with Sharpham to produce bespoke Christmas cheeses, which are rolled in black pepper or herbs.

“We’re recognising there is interest out there and as long as we like the cheeses ourselves it seems silly not to offer them,” says Wellen.

Farmhouse cheddar maker Mary Quicke has also overcome preconceptions about flavoured cheeses after holding them in disdain for many years. She launched an elderflower cheddar two years ago after working on the idea with wholesaler Harvey & Brockless, and it has proved to be a hit. Made using elderflower petals, which are sprinkled into the curd when it is being salted, the clothbound cheddar is matured for three months.

“I wanted the elderflower to be in balance with the cheese so you couldn’t tell where it ended and the cheese started,” Quicke says.

“The thing with artisan cheeses is that they have complexity. What we seek in flavour is a complex balance that is really long on the palate.

With a lot of additive cheeses you get an initial hit and that’s it. There’s a lot of sweetness at the front and nothing else, which is not my game at all.”

Curd nerds who are still not convinced by the case for additive cheeses will find it hard to argue

against Paxton & Whitfield’s truffle brie, which can be bought by the wedge or as a pack for people to put together themselves at home.

The cheese is made by cutting a raw milk Brie de Meaux in half lengthways. It is then spread with truffles and ultra creamy Brillat Savarin and put back together to create a kind of truffle cheese sandwich, which is as gloriously rich and decadent as it sounds. A gooey slice with a glass of fizz at Christmas will melt the hearts of even the most hardened of flavoured cheese sceptics.

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cheeses from switzerland

Made of the mountains When it comes to Alpine cheese, Gruyère AOP is at the summit. PATRICK McGUIGAN takes a trip to Switzerland to see how raw milk is turned into the iconic wheels.

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goodcheese 2015-16

T

here’s a background music to the rolling hills and mountains that surround the medieval town of Gruyères in Switzerland.

You don’t notice it at first, but the soft ‘tonk’ of bells is a constant refrain wherever you go in the beautiful countryside.

The cows that pepper the landscape and whose bells provide the chorus of clanking are not there just for the tourists, who come in their thousands to visit the town’s fairytale castle. They have been an essential part of the region’s history, culture and economy for centuries, providing milk for arguably Switzerland’s most famous cheese.

Gruyère AOP, which is named after the town, has a history stretching back for at least 900 years and is still produced in a traditional way today. Made in 35kg wheels, which a man can just about pick up (although I struggled), the hard, raw milk cheese is famous for its complex flavours, which intensify as it matures.

Under protective laws of the Appellation d’Origine Protégée (AOP) that guarantees its authenticity, the cheese can only be made in the cantons of Fribourg, Vaud, Neuchâtel, Jura and Berne in French-speaking west Switzerland. Similar to the EU’s Protected Designation of Origin rules that govern production of cheeses like Stilton and Parmigiano Reggiano, these AOP regulations also set out strict rules that stipulate how the cheese is made.

These apply not just to the small village dairies that produce the cheese, but also the specialist maturers who ripen it in cellars and caves, and the farmers who supply the milk, which brings us back to those noisy cows.

Like wine and its terroir, this milk reflects the mountainous landscape. From April to November the cows roam the hills grazing on flowers, herbs

and grasses, while in the winter they are fed hay harvested on the farm during the summer. Silage and genetically modified feed are strictly forbidden.

More than 70 individual flavours, from toasted hazelnuts to wet grass, have been detected in Gruyère AOP, which is only possible because of the cows’ diverse diet and because the milk is never pasteurised. Other cheeses are made with milk that has been heat treated to kill the natural bacteria but Gruyère AOP is only made with unpasteurised milk so that its unique characteristics can be fully expressed in the cheese.

The 2,200 farms that supply the milk for Gruyère AOP are tiny by British standards, with each one home to just 30-50 cows on average. These are typically red- or black-and-white Holsteins, whose milk must be delivered to the local village dairy within 18 hours.

There are around 170 cheese-makers licensed to make Gruyère AOP, most of them small family businesses with just a couple of employees.

Fromagerie Grandvillard is a typical example. Laurent Python is a third generation cheese-maker, whose grandfather used to make Alpage Gruyère AOP in the mountains. He employs two apprentices and makes around 12 wheels of Gruyère AOP a day, using milk from a dozen farms, which by law must be within a 13-mile radius. That works out at around 15 tonnes a year – a tiny amount compared to industrial cheese producers who make thousands of tonnes a year.

When the milk arrives, it is pumped into two copper vats where Laurent kick-starts the cheesemaking process by adding starter cultures, in the form of whey from the previous day’s make, and rennet, a natural enzyme derived from calves’ stomachs. These trigger a change in the milk,

Gruyère AOP d’Alpage Most Gruyère AOP is made with milk from cows that graze in the hills and valleys just below the mountains. But some animals are taken high up into the peaks of the Alps and Jura during the summer to graze pastures full of diverse grasses and flowers, known as the Alpage. The herdsmen spend the summer making cheese called Gruyère AOP d’Alpage in small mountain chalets. Produced in 25kg wheels, it has to be made in copper cauldrons hung over wood fires, and is known for its intense, almost wild, flavours.

At the end of the summer, the cows are brought back down to their winter sheds in the desalpe (the descent from the Alps). The animals horns are festooned with ribbons and flowers, and greeted by locals with cheers and parties.

The desalpe in Charmey in Fribourg is a particularly boisterous affair with yodellers and Alpine horn blowers in traditional Swiss dress.

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Award Winning Cheese made in Sussex

ONE OF A RANGE OF CHEESES FROM HIGH WEALD High Weald Dairy, Tremains Farm, Horsted Keynes, Sussex Tel: 01825 791636 www.highwealddairy.co.uk

RH17 7EA

snowdoniacheese.co.uk

Made with pride bursting with character

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cheeses from Switzerland transforming it into a wobbly curd. Frames set with thin blades (called cheese harps) are then swept through the blancmange-like mass to slice it into tiny pieces and release moisture (whey) at the same time.

The mixture is then heated to 57°C. Throughout the process, Laurent moves between the vats assessing the milk and curd with his eyes and by touch, literally feeling it with his fingers. “Making cheese is like a river that is constantly changing,” he explains, as he squeezes a handful of grain-like curds together. “You need to see and feel the milk because there is such a big variation during the year, especially when the cows are brought inside for the winter and start feeding on hay. I’m still learning after 35 years.”

The skill of the cheese-maker was demonstrated when Laurent took a holiday earlier in the year. The Gruyère AOP made by his stand-in scored lower at the official four-month grading (when all cheeses are independently assessed and taxed to ensure they meet Gruyère AOP’s standards) than the cheeses made by Laurent in the following weeks.

“It’s what happens when you go away,” says Laurent, looking both pleased and disappointed at the same time. “I don’t have many holidays.”

Once the curds and whey have cooked for long enough, they are pumped into cylindrical moulds.

The whey drains leaving the curd, which quickly knits together into white rubbery discs, which are then pressed for 24 hours to release more whey and

bathed in brine for a further 24 hours.

Laurent ripens the cheeses in his cellars for the first three months, where a small robot washes them in a brine solution once or twice a week to help the rind to form. “We used to do it by hand but it was hard work,” he says. “The robot never takes a holiday.”

The cheeses are then delivered to a specialist maturer or ‘affineur’. There are only nine of these in the whole Gruyère AOP-making region and their influence on the final cheese is just as important as the farmer or the cheese-maker.

This is evident from visiting one of Gruyère AOP’s largest affineurs, Fromco. Built into the sandstone rock in Moudon, its huge cellars contain more than 130,000 wheels.

They are so big that director Jean-Marc Collomb half jokingly warns us not to get lost as we tour round. “Don’t speak too loudly either,” he adds.

“The children are sleeping in the nursery!”

Our guide around the “nursery” is Sébastien Andrey, a cheese master, whose job it is to make sure each wheel is matured to its full potential. The caves are kept at a constant temperature (12-18°C) and humidity (92%) and the cheeses are regularly turned and brushed in brine to help develop the texture and complex flavours. Some wheels will be at their best at six months, others will need to be matured for 12 or even longer. Working out when each cheese is ready requires a lot of training. It takes almost as

long to become a doctor as it does a Gruyère AOP cheese master, who train for anywhere between five to seven years, studying at college but also working in the industry.

A big part of Sébastien’s job is assessing cheese for quality and maturing potential. Like the cheesemaker, he uses all his senses, first of all visually inspecting them for cracks, then tapping them with the handle of his cheese iron to listen for unwanted holes, before using the sharp end of the iron to draw out a plug of cheese. This is squidged between his fingers, sniffed and then finally tasted.

“The texture is too fine in this one,” he says thoughtfully of a six-month cheese. “I think it will be ready at 12 months, but we will check again.”

Some of the cheese in Fromco’s caves will end up on the shelves of UK supermarkets, but also in delis, farm shops and restaurant kitchens.

Although Gruyère AOP is a well-known brand, its broad appeal is thanks to the small scale on which it is produced. It’s all down to an impressive level of co-operation between small farms, village dairies and affineurs, who recognise there is strength in numbers. If Britain’s milk farmers and cheddarmakers had joined forces in the same way, we might not have have seen so many falling by the wayside.

Forget chocolates, cuckoo clocks and pen-knives.

The real national symbol of Switzerland is the cow. www.gruyere.com/en/

From feeding the cows, through to cutting the curds and the individual maturing of each wheel, every stage of Gruyère AOP production is closely controlled to guarantee its quality.

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Isle of Mull Cheese Our Raw Milk Cheese is produced entirely from our own herd of Cows on the Family Farm. Using Wood for Heat and the Wind and Rain for Electricity Telephone 01688 302627 | email mull.cheese@isleofmullcheese.co.uk

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www. isleofmullcheese.co.uk

Old Irish Creamery is a family-run business making a range of cheddar cheeses, with or without additives.

Options include: Oak Smoked, Garlic & Herbs, Chilli, Cranberries, Blueberries, Walnuts, Irish Porter, Irish Whiskey, Red Wine, Chocolate, Seaweed, Chives and many more.

Our range has won 60 national and international awards since we began cheese-making in 2008, including gold, silver and bronze at the 2011 World Cheese Awards and 16 awards at last yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Nantwich International Cheese Awards.

All products are made with 100% Irish Cheddar and 100% natural ingredients.

At Burtâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Cheese we produce a range of award-winning handcrafted cheeses

BURTâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S BLUE CHEESE, DRUNKEN BURT, DIVINE www.oldirishcreamery.com

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J.O.D. Food Products Ltd., Effin, Kilmallock, Co. Limerick Tel: +353 (0)63 71209

For more information please contact us Tel 0770 939 4292 claire@burtscheese.com www.burtscheese.co.uk

cheese accompaniments

Striking matches

Spanish specialist Delicioso has a range of fruit jellies made by an artisan producer from the El Bierzo region of León in Northern Spain. This not only includes membrillo (quince jelly) – a traditional Spanish accompaniment for Manchego, Tetilla and San Simon – but also fruit pastes made from figs (which works with blue cheeses like Valdeon), Reineta apples (to balance a smoked cheese such as Idiazábal), and from red peppers and tomatoes, both of which it recommends with a firmtextured goats’ cheese.

If you love good cheese, you’ll like our selection of great cheese accompaniments, from craft ciders and beers to crackers and condiments

Spain has a long tradition of sweet additions to the cheeseboard and Bellota’s membrillo quince paste and pressed dry fruit cakes make a fruity change to crackers.

Its preservative-free membrillo complements cheeses such as Rosemary Artesano Manchego, while the sweetness of the gluten-free no-added sugar fruit cakes – in fig & almond and date & walnut options – balances strong, salty cheeses like Azul Hojas’ cows’ milk blue. www.bellota.co.uk

www.delicioso.co.uk

The signature biscuit for cheese at Stag Bakeries is a water biscuit made to a traditional Scottish recipe. The Hebridean producer’s hand-baked crackers (RRP £2.20) come in a choice of flavours – original, salt & black pepper, rosemary, sweet chilli, Parmesan & garlic, sesame seed, and its multi-award-winning Stornoway water biscuit with seaweed. This uses locally sourced seaweed to give a coastal tang that particularly complements brie or the similar Perl Wen from Welsh cheese-maker Caws Cenarth. www.stagbakeries.co.uk

Lightly sparkling Vilberie medium dry cider is well-suited to a “robust” cheeseboard, says Apple County Cider Co, and goes particularly well with a Hafod Welsh organic cheddar.

Made from single variety bittersweet apples from Monmouthshire, the cider drew praise from the 2015 Great Taste judges for its balance of sweet and dry, and its “clean, crisp and refreshing taste”. These helped it win three stars, a place in the Great Taste Top 50 and the Golden Fork for Wales.

The earthy sweetness of beetroot makes it a good pairing with cheese and cold meats, and Welsh Speciality Foods’ handmade Welsh beetroot chutney has plenty of tangy chunks of it, as well as sweet juicy apples and a kick of horseradish to boost the flavour.

The Denbighshire-based company offers a range of handmade chutneys, marmalades, conserves, accompaniments and mustards. www.welshspecialityfoods.co.uk

www.applecountycider.co.uk

Devon producer Hillside Foods’ multi awardwinning range is “everything you need to complete the ultimate cheeseboard”, it says.

Its handmade and hand-cut biscuits – in charcoal & cumin, toasted hazelnut, oat & seed, and pink peppercorn – are baked in wood-fired ovens to provide just the right textures while its chutneys, pickles and relishes – including a celery pickle and red onion & thyme marmalade – are made in small batches in true artisan style.

New to Rosebud Preserves’ range of pickles, chutneys, relishes and fruit jellies this year is the Great Yorkshire Pickle, which is said to work particularly well with cold meats and farmhouse cheddar.

The rich, dark chutney is prepared with traditional garden vegetables, dates, molasses, spices and Black Sheep Riggwelter Ale – a strong ale from the local Black Sheep Brewery in Masham.

www.hillsidefoods.co.uk

www.rosebudpreserves.co.uk

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Walo Von Mühlenen of more World Cheese Awards than Switzerland has mountains

Traditional cheese handcrafted on the family farm

From our family farm in West Limerick, we produce a range of handcrafted, artisan, award winning cheeses, including: Cahill’s Original Irish Porter Cheddar, Cahill’s Irish Whiskey Cheddar with Kilbeggan, Cahill’s Ardagh Red Wine Cheddar.

The cornerstone of our business is that each cheese is individually made and handcrafted thus retaining the subtlety of flavour that is invariably absent from the mass produced product.

T: +353 6962365 E: info@cahillscheese.ie

www.cahillscheese.ie

DEDICATED TO TASTE FOR OVER 25 YEARS Handmade exclusively from the milk produced by the ewes here on our farm. Available throughout the UK, also; North America, Europe and Asia.

• Super Gold 2013 World Cheese Awards • Best Modern British Cheese and Best Export Cheese at the British Cheese Awards • The James Aldridge Memorial Trophy • Excellence in Practical Farming; The Royal Agricultural Society of England.

info@berkswellcheese.com 01676 532203

www.berkswellcheese.com

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Exclusively distributed in the UK

by The Fine Cheese Co. www.finecheese.co.uk 01225 424212

unusual cheeses Hampshire Pantry says it produces “real products with big flavours”, as exemplified by its one-star Great Taste-winning tomato chutney with coriander & black onion seeds.

This sweet, mildly spiced chutney has lots of fresh ginger and fresh coriander to balance the fruit, making it “sweet and succulent with a good balance of spicing”, according to 2015’s Great Taste judges. www.hampshirepantry.com

Experts in the US are increasingly pitching craft beer as the best drink to match with artisan cheese, and Lymestone Brewery, based in Stone, Staffordshire, says its range of original beers fits the bill. They range from Stone Faced, a 4% traditional bitter, though to Abdominal Stoneman, a 7% American hopped Pale Ale. There is also a honey beer, Stone Brood, made from honey from its own bees, and a watermelon wheat beer.

All are available in 500ml bottles.

The dry fruitiness of Ashridge’s Vintage Cider pairs perfectly with rich buttery cheese, according to the West Country producer, cutting through the cheese’s creaminess and highlighting the cider’s complex, earthy flavours.

For creamy and blue cheeses Ashridge recommends the sweeter, fruitier flavour of its Organic Devon Blush cider.

www.lymestonebrewery.co.uk

www.ashridgecider.co.uk

“Great cheese deserves a great relish”, according to Charlotte Brown’s Handmade Preserves. Among the creations in its handmade range is the best-selling piccalilli (available in 500g and 330g sizes), holder of a one-star Great Taste award, and a tomato relish with a tiny kick of chilli, which is well-suited to a full-flavoured cheddar.

The producer also recommends its chilli jam for delicate white cheeses, and onion relish as an accompaniment for blues. www.charlottebrowns.co.uk

Uncle Roy’s describes its Extra Special Condiments as high in fruit and versatile enough to accompany a variety of different cheeses. Three of them have won Great Taste awards in the past year – sour & sweet citrus sauce, blackcurrant & liquorice sauce and tart red cherry sauce – and the Scottish producer also highlights its “delectable” smokey chilli jam.

Uncle Roy’s range of chutneys, relishes and mild fruity mustards is found in delis, farm shops, food halls, butchers, garden centres and department stores nationwide. www.uncleroys.co.uk

Described by one Great Taste awards judge as “the best biscuit-for-cheese out there”, Peter’s Yard’s original recipe crispbread is light, crispy and versatile enough to make it suitable for a wide selection of cheeses. The spelt & fig variety is best with a strong blue cheese, the baker says, while the seeded wholegrain suits a more robust, hard cheese.

Peter’s Yard crispbreads are available in a range of sizes from individual servings to larger sharing versions.

The Foods of Athenry’s twice-baked gourmet soda bread toasts are “the perfect addition to the well-dressed cheeseboard”, according to the Lawless family, who run the bakery on their farm in the West of Ireland.

All natural and handcrafted, the toasts comes in a four flavours: multiseed; multiseed with cumin (26% seeds) for blue cheese; cranberry & hazelnut, which pairs well with goats’ cheese; and a honeyed almond & rosemary, to partner with hard cheeses. www.foodsofathenry.ie

Hawkshead Relish describes its dark, rich and fruity Westmorland chutney as “the little black dress of the chutney world” that no kitchen cupboard should be without. A blend of exotic spices and succulent fruit cooked slowly in a rich red wine vinegar, it picked up a star in the 2015 Great Taste awards.

The producer says it epitomises “the essence of a traditional ploughman’s pickle”, but also pairs well with cold cuts and shepherd’s pie. www.hawksheadrelish.com

www.petersyard.com

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+44 (0) 1494 530182 www.hydropac.co.uk sales@hydropac.co.uk

Manufacturers of insulated shipping boxe sa

nd ic

e pac

All products available from stock

The ultimate cheeseboard accompaniments

ks

• 100% recyclable environmentally friendly materials • Designed for all your cold chain requirements, mail order and carry home water/gel ice packs

• Bespoke packaging design service free of charge • Lighter weight for lower shipping costs

Artisan biscuits, chutneys, pickles and fruits for cheese.

Insulated boxes Insulated carrier bags

Keep it cool, keep it with Hyd ropa Buy online at www.hydropac.co.uk c!

Hillside Foods, Glebe Farm, Kenn, Exeter, Devon. EX6 7UL 01392 833630 | www.hillsidefoods.co.uk info@hillsidefoods.co.uk

Love Wensleydale Cheese… make sure it’s from Yorkshire!

Not all cheeses bearing the Wensleydale name are actually produced in Yorkshire! By stocking Yorkshire Wensleydale your customers can be assured that they are buying an authentic product, traditionally handcrafted with integrity in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales.

Yorkshire Wensleydale Cheese is now protected

www.wensleydale.co.uk 40

goodcheese 2015-16

Barrioflex 速

PREMIUM BARRIER FILM

Keeps the great taste of your cheese until consumption

Cheese wrapped in Barrioflex Film emphasizes that its hand made, precious and delicious, opposed to industrial cheese packaging.

Premium Barrier Film:

Barrioflex RS111 film satisfies the highest criteria for food packaging, protection and preservation. It offers a very high oxygen barrier which prevents mould growing and oxidation. Its very high water vapour barrier prevents dry-out and weight loss. The protective Barrioflex barrier keeps odours out and protects flavour integrity. Barrioflex can provide up to 30 days shelf life..

Asahi Packaging

we share your love of cheese

our contact in U.K.: Bob Pitt, Mobile 0044 (0)7802/359820, E-Mail: bobpitt1@aol.com

STONE BREWED SINCE 2008 Lymestone Brewery, The Old Brewery, Mount Rd, Stone, Staffs ST15 8LL 01785 817796

www.lymestonebrewery.co.uk

goodcheese 2015-16

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RECIPES

What’s cooking?

Cristian Barnett

Andrew Hayes-Watkins

Cheese can be just as good in the kitchen as it is on the board. Get inspired with this selection of recipes.

Cheddar & Ale Soup Tom Kerridge SERVES 4 Ingredients 75g butter 1 large onion (about 175g), diced 1 large potato (about 175g), peeled and diced 70g plain flour 500ml chicken stock 500ml brown ale (the stronger the better) 100ml double cream 350g strong cheddar cheese, grated Salt and freshly ground black pepper For the dressing: 4 tbsp olive oil 1 tbsp malt extract 1 tbsp cider vinegar To garnish: 1 large Bramley apple, peeled, cored and finely diced 2 tbsp chopped chives Method Melt the butter in a large, heavy-based saucepan over a medium heat. Add the onion and potato and cook gently, stirring from time to time, until softened (but don’t let them take on any colour) – around 10-15 minutes.

Sprinkle the flour evenly over the vegetables in the pan and cook, stirring, for 1-2 minutes, then stir in the chicken stock. Whack up the heat and

“I really like the combination of the rich, hoppy ale and the gentle acidity from the dairy” bring to the boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook gently for about 10 minutes until the soup has thickened. Pour in the ale and heat gently for a further few minutes.

Remove from the heat, let cool slightly and then transfer the mixture to a blender or food processor.

Add the cream and whiz until nice and smooth.

Pass the soup through a fine sieve into a clean

Stuffed butternut squash Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

SERVES 4

All images: Isabelle Plasschaert

Ingredients 1 large butternut squash (about 1.5kg) or 2 small ones 1 garlic clove, finely chopped About 50g unsalted butter A little rapeseed or olive oil 75g walnuts, lightly toasted and very coarsely chopped 200g blue cheese, such as Dorset Blue Vinny or Harbourne Blue, crumbled into small lumps (or use a crumbly goat’s cheese) 2 teaspoons chopped thyme 1 scant tablespoon runny honey Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

goodcheese 2015-16

Recipe from Tom’s Table by Tom Kerridge, published by Absolute Press

add the chopped garlic and a nut of butter to each cavity, then brush with a little oil and season well.

Place in an oven preheated to 190°C/Gas Mark 5 and bake for ¾-1 hour, until the flesh feels very tender when pierced with the tip of a knife.

Scoop the soft flesh and all the buttery, garlicky juices out into a bowl, leaving a 1cm thick layer of flesh still attached to the skin, so the squash holds its shape. Roughly mash the flesh. Keep back a few pieces of walnut and a little of the cheese, then fold the remaining walnuts and cheese into the soft squash, along with the thyme and some more salt and pepper.

Spoon the filling back into the empty squash halves and scatter on the reserved cheese and walnuts. Finish with the merest trickle of honey, then return the squash to the oven and bake for 15 minutes, or until the cheese is bubbling. Serve with a crisp green salad.

“It’s easy to adapt and alter the øĄď á Êò Ąª squash, according TO what you have and what you fancy”

Method Make sure the outside of the squash is scrubbed clean. Cut the squash in half lengthways and scoop out the seeds and soft fibres. Put in a roasting dish, 42

saucepan and season with pepper and a little salt – do not add too much at this stage as the cheese will introduce extra saltiness later.

To make the dressing, whisk together the olive oil, malt extract and cider vinegar in a small bowl until emulsified.

Warm the soup gently over a low heat and stir in the grated cheddar, allowing it to melt. Taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary.

Ladle the soup into warmed bowls and trickle a little dressing on top of each one. Sprinkle on the diced apple and chives and serve immediately.

This recipe features in Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage Every Day, published by Bloomsbury

“The combination of Parmesan, Fontina and mozzarella makes for some seriously stretchy forkfuls”

Laurie Fletcher

Mac & Cheese Russell Norman

SERVES 6

John Carey

Ingredients 250g macaroni pasta Fine salt 250ml whole milk 450ml double cream 175g grated Parmesan 250g grated mozzarella – the hard, cheap kind

Cashel Blue, Roasted Endive & Roasted Pear in a Spice Syrup Jason Atherton

1½ tablespoons Dijon mustard 2 leeks 25g butter 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped Flaky sea salt and black pepper 75g panko breadcrumbs 85g grated Fontina SERVES 4 Ingredients 400g Cashel Blue cheese, cut into 4 neat slices For the spice syrup: 250ml water 90g caster sugar ½ tablespoon lemon juice 2 star anise, lightly crushed 1 cinnamon stick For the roasted pear: 2 ripe pears 20g unsalted butter

From SPUNTINO by Russell Norman, published by Bloomsbury

jar or squeezy bottle, ready for serving.

Trim the tops and bottoms from the pears, then slice horizontally into 1.5cm-thick rounds – you will need four neat slices of fairly equal size and thickness.

(The leftover slices and trimmings are a cook’s treat.)

Melt the butter in a wide frying pan set over medium heat. When the butter begins to foam, add the pear slices and fry for 2-3 minutes on each side or until golden brown.

Transfer the pears to a plate lined with kitchen paper to absorb any excess butter.

For the endives, wipe the pan clean with a wad of kitchen paper, then return it to medium-high heat. Add the butter and, as it melts, place the endive halves, cut side down, in the pan. Fry for 2 minutes or until golden brown, then flip the endives over and pour in the stock. Add the lemon juice and a pinch of salt.

Lower the heat slightly and simmer gently for about 15 minutes or until the endives are tender but still holding their shape. Remove from the heat and keep the endives warm in the stock.

To serve, place a roasted pear slice in the centre of each serving plate and arrange two well-drained roasted endive halves on either side of the pear. Drizzle the spice syrup over the pear and endive. Place a slice of Cashel Blue on top of the roasted pear. Coarsely grind some black pepper over all and serve immediately.

“This dish can masquerade as either a cheese course or a dessert”

For the roasted endive: 20g unsalted butter 4 endives (chicory), halved lengthways 200ml chicken stock 2 tbsp lemon juice Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

John Carey

Method Bring a large pan of water to a rolling boil, add the pasta and some fine salt, and stir. When the water boils again, turn down to a medium heat and follow the instructions on the packet, usually simmering for around 11 minutes. Drain when al dente.

Once cooled, transfer the drained pasta to a large mixing bowl and add the milk, the double cream, 125g of the Parmesan, half of the mozzarella and the Dijon mustard. Mix together thoroughly and leave to soak for 2 hours.

Meanwhile, trim the leeks by removing and discarding the green tops and the roots, and finely chop. Wash the chopped leeks thoroughly to get rid of any grit. Place a medium pan over a low heat, melt the butter and very gently sweat the leeks with the garlic, 4 large pinches of flaky sea salt and a good pinch of black pepper. After about 10 minutes, the leeks will have a translucent, glossy appearance. Take off the heat and leave to cool. Once the leeks have cooled, drain off any lingering fluid and add them to the soaking pasta.

Mix the breadcrumbs with the remaining Parmesan and set aside.

Preheat the oven to 200°C/Gas 6. Add the grated Fontina and the remaining mozzarella to the pasta mixture and combine well. Transfer the mix to a large baking dish or six individual dishes and cover with the breadcrumb and Parmesan mix. Bake in the preheated oven till golden brown and bubbling, for 20-25 minutes if using one large dish, or 15-20 if using individual dishes.

Method First prepare the spice syrup. Place all the ingredients in a small saucepan and stir over medium heat until the sugar has dissolved. Increase the heat and bring to the boil, then leave to boil for about 10 minutes or until reduced to a syrupy consistency. Leave to cool completely, then strain the syrup and transfer to a small

From Social Sweets by Jason Atherton, published by Absolute Press

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To keep their campaign current and in the media the villagers of Stilton have come together to produce a calendar for 2016.

The calendar is based around film and TV genre, with the idea of the Calendar Girls theme and strategically placed Stilton’s Cheese imagery included into the photography.

Raising funds for the village community centre this also serves as an announcement of the imminent production of Stilton’s Cheese in 2016 direct from the village.

To purchase copies of the calendar please contact by phone 01733 240 321 or email rh.landy@virgin.net These will be a “must have” 2016 calendar for every cheese lover Get in now! Limited edition of just a 1000 copies.

The Cheesemakers of Canterbury, home of award winning Kentish cheeses including the award winning Chaucers Camembert.

All our cheeses are available at our retail outlet at The Goods Shed in Canterbury, or through the cheesemakersofcanterbury.co.uk website, as well as through our wholesalers. Our range includes our first and signature cheese Ashmore Farmhouse, along with Kellys, Gruffs, Canterbury Cobble, Bowyers Brie and of course the award winning Chaucers Camembert.

s Golden Fork Wale

PRODUCED IN

WINNER OF THE GOLDEN FORK FOR WALES

WWW.APPLECOUNTYCIDER.CO.UK 44

goodcheese 2015-16

KENT

Why not visit our website and find out about our handmade cheeses and follow the process from milk through to the presses and the range of award winning cheeses.

In addition you can discover our history as cheesemakers and the histor y of Ashmore Cheese.

Lamberhurst Farm, Dargate, Faversham, Kent. ME13 9ES Tel: 01227 751741 - www.cheesemakersofcanterbury.co.uk

directory of retailers

Where to buy good cheese LONDON & SOUTH EAST

www.harrisonswines.co.uk

An ‘all British’ cheesemonger, stocking some of the very best handmade cheeses from across the UK, plus a range of British charcuterie, local handmade breads, biscuits and chutneys. Also offering tasting events, hampers and a bespoke ordering service.

Alongside an eclectic range of wines, directly imported from all over the world, is an extensive display of over 110 cheeses. The selection of British varieties includes better-known names like Quickes cheddar and Barkham Blue as well as the more unusual Lord London, Mayfield and Lord of the Hundreds. There are also rare French delicacies like Abbaye de Citeaux and Brun de Noix washed in walnut liqueur, and customers can also enjoy a glass of wine and a cheese or charcuterie platter in the bar area.

The Deli Downstairs 211 Victoria Park Road, London E9 7JN T: 020 8533 5006

The Larder 71 Ladywell Road, London SE13 7JA T: 0771 262 3222

www.thedelidownstairs.co.uk

www.thelarderdeli.com

The Deli Downstairs cheese counter brings together sought-after cheeses from Britain and Continental Europe. They include French varieties selected and aged by Mons Fromagers-Affineurs and classic British cheeses from Neal’s Yard. From its many other suppliers it offers a host of award-winning hard and soft cows’, goats’ and ewes’ milk cheeses and blues from the caves, mountains, valleys and shorelines of Europe. Well-informed staff help customers taste, select and match cheeses according to their preference. The selection is seasonal, and those with distinct early, mid and late season characteristics make for an ever-changing offer. The shop includes a licensed Refreshment Room, where the menu includes a variety of cheeseboards.

The Larder’s cheese counter holds over 70 great varieties, many changing seasonally, with a focus on the local and artisan-produced. Blackwoods Graceburn from south-east London sits alongside Fremlin’s Log from Kent, Buchette de Manon from Provence and Sardinian Granglona, as well as more traditional stalwarts like Lincolnshire Poacher, Colston Bassett Stilton, Brie de Meaux and Comté. This “general store with an eclectic twist” also stocks a wide selection of charcuterie, wine and locally produced craft beer, jams, chutneys, honey and bread.

Hampers and gifts are a speciality.

Fuller’s Farm Shop Bunny Lane, Eridge, Tunbridge Wells, Kent TN3 9BY T: 01892 541238

www.macfarlanesdeli.co.uk

Cheese and Chutney of Emsworth 28 High Street, Emsworth, Hampshire PO10 7AW T: 01243 377895 www.cheeseandchutneyemsworth.co.uk

www.fullers-tw.co.uk

Fuller’s Farm Shop carries a wide range of handcrafted British, French and other European farmhouse cheeses, including a big selection of local awardwinners from Kent and Sussex. The shop also has a full selection of locally sourced meats and a wide array of local artisan foods, along with fresh fruit & seasonal vegetables and wines & beers from the vineyards of Kent & Sussex.

Harrison’s Vintners & Delicatessen 60 Pitshanger Lane, Ealing, London W5 1QY T:0208 998 7866

MacFarlane’s Fromagerie 48 Abbeville Road, Clapham South, London SW4 9NF. T: 0208 673 5373 Selling British and Continental cheeses to shoppers in and around Clapham since 1998, MacFarlane’s imports direct from France, Italy and Spain, so along with well-known varieties it always has guest cheeses for customers to discover. There is wide selection of charcuterie, wine and grocery items, and chocolates are now very much a speciality with an every increasing range.

No2 Pound Street 2 Pound Street, Wendover, Bucks, HP22 6EJ T: 01296 585022 www.2poundstreet.com

Situated in the heart of the Chilterns, No2 Pound Street, a former winner of the British Cheese

Awards ‘Best New Retailer’ category, specialises in British cheeses, many of which are local. It is also an independent wine shop with an extensive range of quality wines, and its staff are happy to help customers match these with their cheese.

Partridges of Sloane Square 2-5 Duke of York Square, Sloane Square, London SW3 4LY T: 020 7730 0651 www.partridges.co.uk

The London food hall has a range of Continental cheeses, like the World Cheese Award Super Gold winner Ossau Iraty AOP, Camembert, Normandie Roquefort, Brie de Meaux (plain and with truffle), Comté, Reblochon and Pecorino. It also stocks a broad selection of cheese biscuits and chutneys.

SOUTH WEST Allington Farm Shop Allington Bar Farm, Allington, Chippenham, Wiltshire SN14 6LJ T: 01249 658112 www.allingtonfarmshop.co.uk

An array of the best local, artisan and Continental cheeses, including ewes’ and goats’ milk varieties, together with a selection of charcuterie, including Parma ham and local wild boar salami, home-cooked meats, Italian olives and insalatas, patés, handmade Scotch eggs, locally smoked fish and meats and locally made pies.

The Apple Tree Farm Shop Brimsmore Gardens, Tintinhull Road, Yeovil BA21 3NU T: 01935 426596 www.thegardeneronline.co.uk www.appletreefarmshop.co.uk

The Apple Tree is an award-winning farm shop and restaurant, known for its local sourcing. Its buyers have visited many of the shop’s suppliers to see cheeses made on the farm, enabling them to share with customers “the product knowledge that these wonderful cheeses deserve”. The shop’s range spans legendary West Country cheeses and World Cheese Awards winners, and The Apple Tree is also a popular choice for cheese wedding cakes too.

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Winner of a World Cheese Awards Super Gold 2014

Contact us for details of our range of delicious, artisan goats cheeses, including our award-winning Wensum White.

www.ďŹ eldingcottage.co.uk

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directory of retailers Bloomfields Fine Food 8 High Street, Highworth, Nr Swindon, Wiltshire SN6 7AG 52 High Street, Shrivenham, Oxfordshire SN6 8AA T: 01793 766399 www.bloomfieldsfinefood.co.uk

Voted South West Deli of the Year 2012-13, Bloomfields carries a wide range of British and Continental artisan cheeses as well as many local products including cured meats, pies, oils, breads, preserves, honey, ciders and craft ales. Also offers both online and bespoke hampers.

The Cotswold Cheese Co 5 High Street, Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire GL56 0AH T: 01608 652 862 1-2 Fountain Court, Digbeth St, Stow-on-the-Wold, Gloucestershire, GL54 1BN T: 01451 870034 113 High Street, Burford, Oxfordshire OX18 4RG T: 01993 823 882 www.cotswoldcheese.com

The Cotswold Cheese Co now has three outlets, having opened premises in Stow-on-the-Wold and Burford. All its shops carry a range of local, British and European artisan cheeses as well as artisan bread, fine wine, local beer, cider, chutney, biscuits and other deli essentials.

The Cheese Hamlet 706 Wilmslow Road, Didsbury, M20 2DW T: 0161 434 4781 www.cheesehamlet.co.uk

extensive range of cheeses representing “all that’s required to create the perfect cheeseboard for any occasion”. Knowledgeable staff can assist in putting together inspired combinations to suit any palate.

A small, specialist store with a big reputation, The Cheese Hamlet prides itself on the product knowledge of its owners and staff, and is filled with “delights from around the world”, including over 200 English & Continental cheeses.

The Melton Cheeseboard 8 Windsor Street, Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire LE13 1BU T: 01664 562 257 www.meltoncheeseboard.co.uk

Fodder Fodder, Great Yorkshire Showground, Railway Road, Harrogate, North Yorkshire. HG2 8NZ. T: 01423546111 www.fodder.co.uk

Multi-award-winning Fodder stocks over 60 different cheeses, 30 of which are produced in Yorkshire, and includes cows’, sheep’s, goats’ and buffalo milk.

Whether customers are cooking with it or arranging a chees board there is something at Fodder for every taste, plus all the accompaniments, including crackers, pickles, chutneys, artisan breads and jellies.

Godfrey C Williams & Son Corner House, 9-11 Market Square, Sandbach CW11 1AP T: 01270 762 817 www.godfreycwilliams.co.uk

Thomas of Malmesbury 51 The Triangle, Malmesbury, Wiltshire, SN16 0AH T: 01666 823981 www.thomasofmalmesbury.co.uk

An award-winning family butcher and deli-café, Thomas of Malmesbury carries over 100 cheeses – mainly traditional European varieties – along with a wide selection of cheese accompaniments, patés, olives, charcuterie, pies and, of course, butchery meats.

Town Mill Cheesemonger Mill Lane, Lyme Regis, Dorset DT7 3PU T: 01297 442 626 www.townmillcheese.co.uk

Much lauded specialist in cheeses from the West Country and further afield, plus accompaniments.

Turnbulls Cheesemonger, Deli & Bistro 9 High Street, Shaftesbury SP7 8HZ T: 01747 858 575 www.turnbullsdeli.com

Charlie Turnbull’s renowned cheese counter showcases the finest examples of perfectly matured British and European cheeses. A must-visit shop and bistro (with Great Taste award-winning coffee) on the Dorset-Wiltshire borders, Charlie personally selects every cheese, including discoveries he makes when visiting cheese-makers and judging international cheese competitions.

NORTH OF ENGLAND The Abbots Delicatessen Unit 15, Burton Market Hall, Burton on Trent, DE14 1HA T: 07480 893727

A family-run business since 1875, this Cheshire deli has an extensive selection of British and Continental cheeses, including speciality blended cheeses made by owner David Williams. This award-winning shop also sells bespoke hampers, gift packs, port & Stilton packs, corporate hampers, cheeseboards and accessories.

Urban Pantry 227 Crookes, Sheffield, S10 1TE T:0114 3270792 www.urbanpantry.co.uk

This award-winning South Yorkshire deli has a great range of cheeses from the region and all over the UK and Europe, and also specialises in hampers, cheeseboards and cheese celebration cakes for weddings and other events. Tasty accompaniments, such as crackers and local chutneys, are available and delivery can be arranged.

The Whitby Deli 22-23 Flowergate, Whitby, YO21 3BA T: 01947 229062 www.thewhitbydeli.co.uk

The Whitby Deli stocks a carefully chosen range of award-winning, unusual and exquisite cheeses, and describes itself as “the only place to shop for quality cheese on the North Yorkshire Coast”.

MIDLANDS Gonalston Farm Shop Southwell Road, Lowdham, Nottinghamshire, NG14 7DR T: 01159 665666 www.gonalstonfarmshop.co.uk

A supplier of local cheeses from Staffordshire, Derbyshire and Yorkshire, The Abbots Delicatessen specialises in working with restaurants and pubs to create their cheeseboards and also offers catering for events. Details of its popular cheese celebration cakes can be found on its website.

A former Cheese Counter of the Year winner, Gonalston Farm Shop stocks around 100 cheeses. They include a selection of the best local varieties from Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire, as well as a tempting range of French cheeses, plus fine ewes’ milk and goats’ milk cheeses.

The Cheeseboard 1 Commercial Street, Harrogate, HG1 1UB T: 01423 508 837

Halsey’s Deli 10 Market place, Hitchin, Hertfordshire, SG51DS T: 01462 432 023

www.thecheeseboard.net

www.halseysdeli.co.uk

One of the most respected purveyors of cheese in North Yorkshire, The Cheeseboard stocks over 200 cheeses, including a wide range of local varieties.

Halsey’s has been a food emporium in Hitchin for around 150 years, stocking some of the finest ingredients the world has to offer. It has an

www.theabbotsdeli.co.uk

Two local Leicesters and two different Stiltons, specially matured by and selected from Long Clawson Dairy and Cropwell Bishop Creamery, are among 150 cheeses in stock.

SCOTLAND Ardardan Farm Shop Ardardan Estate, Cardross, G82 5HD T: 01389 849188 www.ardardan.co.uk

The Montgomery family and their team at Ardardan promise a wide selection of the best cheeses Scotland has to offer, along with some top-notch treats from around Britain and Europe. Visitors can explore the world of cheese, crackers and accompaniments and ask the expert team for a taste before choosing. There are regular cheese and wine events at the shop, and Ardardan also welcomes private events.

Corner on the Square 1 High Street, Beauly, Inverness, IV4 7BY T: 01463 783000 www.corneronthesquare.co.uk

Named one of Britain’s Top 50 Delicatessens by The Independent, Corner on the Square champions local Scottish Highland cheeses as well as carrying a strong classic range from across the UK and the Continent.

The Storehouse Foulis Ferry, Evanton, Ross-shire, IV16 9UX T: 01349 830038 www.thestorehouseathome.com

Claiming to offer the best selection of cheeses in the area, from both local suppliers and throughout Europe, The Storehouse also provides hampers, cheese wedding cakes and dinner party selections all year round and will happily tailor these to customers’ specific requirements. A wide selection of accompaniments is available in the deli too.

NORTHERN IRELAND Four Seasons Cherry Valley 38-40 Gilnahirk Road, Belfast, BT5 7DG T: 028 9079 2701 www.thefourseasonsni.co.uk

This Belfast greengrocer and deli has over 80 cheeses from Britain, Ireland and the Continent in stock every day. It can prepare cheeseboards and gifts while you wait and also caters for corporate customers.

WALES Porter’s Delicatessen 1 Market Street, Llangollen, Denbighshire, LL20 8PS T: 01978 862990 www.portersdeli.co.uk

Porter’s supplies fine artisan cheeses from around the world, with a special emphasis on Welsh cheeses, such as Llancych and Snowdonia Black Bomber. Its wide selection also includes Continental and English cheeses, with Tomme de Savoie and 36 monthmatured Parmigiano-Reggiano, and Lyburn’s Old Winchester and Colston Bassett Stilton being firm favourites. It also provides a bespoke cheese wedding cake service.

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