Good Cheese 2018-19

2018-19 | £4.50

A growing community of skilled Japanese cheesemakers is adding a uniquely Eastern character to familiar Western styles

Artisans of Japan INSIDE

BRITAIN’S TERRITORIAL REVIVAL • CHEESES OF NORWAY • DIY CHEESEMAKING • NEAL’S YARD DAIRY • COFFEE MATCHING • CELLARS AT JASPER HILL • DINING OUT • TASTY ACCOMPANIMENTS • SHOP DIRECTORY

Crumb Perfect in the kitchen for all types of cooking and baking. Blacksticks Blue Crumb adds a twist to sauces, pastries, toppings and just about anything else you fancy.

whole cheese Blacksticks Blue in its purest form, straight from the mould. This 2.5kg wheel is a perfect part of any cheese lover’s celebration cake or for the serious cheese fanatics.

150g With just enough blue bite to tingle your taste buds, this stunning little wedge looks amazing sitting on your cheese board, serve with fresh pears and sticky fig chutney.

Spreadable Rich, creamy and perfect for melting - stir into shredded cabbage or sprouts and top with bacon and pecans for an unexpected twist!

Baby whole cheese Bright like the early morning sun, this baby whole cheese dazzles as a centrepiece - top with pistachios, chopped figs, raisins and drizzle with honey.

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GOOD CHEESE 2018-19

HELLO@BUTLERSCHEESES.CO.UK

Welcome

THERE’S A REAL international flavour to this year’s Good Cheese.

Food writer and World Cheese Awards judge Patrick McGuigan (also the cheese correspondent of our sister magazine Fine Food Digest) takes us to Vermont to meet the team behind Cellars at Jasper Hills – a producer and affineur at the heart of the US fine cheese movement.

In Japan, we join food blogger Malory Lane on her regular pilgrimage from Tokyo to ĹŒtaki to buy award-winning cheese from Chiyo Shibata, and along the way hear the story of the nation’s emerging artisan cheesemaking community.

And with Bergen hosting the 2018 World Cheese Awards, Los Angeles-based food and travel writer Elyse Glickman crosses the Atlantic to tell us about Norway’s farmhouse cheese renaissance.

Stifled for many years by a post-war ban on home cheesemaking that was only lifted in the 1980s, producers have been relearning traditional recipes and methods that were almost lost to history.

Closer to home, I’ve been talking to Jason Hinds of the revered Neal’s Yard Dairy, which played its own major role in saving many regional British cheeses from extinction. He’s keen to see more young

INSIDE Counter culture

What’s new and what’s curious in the world of ƓQH FKHHVHV

Neal’s Yard Dairy

We hear from Jason Hinds about the British artisan cheese pioneer’s new maturing base

British territorials

Meet the cheesemakers shaking up the neglected world of regional cheeses

Dining out

AROUND THE WORLD

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Norway

(O\VH *OLFNPDQ SURĆ“OHV Ĺ?V World Cheese Awards host country

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USA

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How Vermont’s Cellars at Jasper Hills has driven the nation’s cheese renaissance

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Japan

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Cheese blogger Malory Lane on the unique artisan cheeses being crafted inside the world’s top cheese-importing nation

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How our love affair with tapas opened the door to a new style of laid-back cheese restaurant

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British cheesemakers seeking inspiration on their doorstep, not just in the cheese hotspots of France or Italy.

Wherever you live, it seems cheese is a great way to stay connected to your roots.

Mick Whitworth Editorial Director, Guild of FIne Food

Tasting: cheese & coffee

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The science of cheese

37

Home cheesemaking

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Perfect accompaniments

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Find a cheese shop

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Cheesemonger Andy Swinscoe teams with Dark :RRGV &RIIHH WR Ć“QG WKH SHUIHFW SDLULQJ WR WRS RII a great meal

How cheese scientists could soon be nudging nature to create new shades of blue

Academy of Cheese director Tracey Colley puts six DIY kits on trial

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2018-19 | ÂŁ4.50

A growing community of skilled Japanese cheesemakers is adding a uniquely Eastern character to familiar Western styles

Artisans of Japan INSIDE

BRITAIN’S TERRITORIAL REVIVAL • CHEESES OF NORWAY • DIY CHEESEMAKING • NEAL’S YARD DAIRY • COFFEE MATCHING • CELLARS AT JASPER HILL • DINING OUT • TASTY ACCOMPANIMENTS • SHOP DIRECTORY

Cover image: Malory Lane

EDITORIAL editorial@gff.co.uk Editorial director: Mick Whitworth Editor: Michael Lane Assistant editor: Lauren Phillips Art Director: Mark Windsor Contributors: Tracey Colley, Elyse Glickman, Malory Lane, Patrick McGuigan, Bronwen Percival, AJ Sharp Photography: Richard Faulks, Isabelle Plasschaert

ADVERTISING advertise@gff.co.uk Sales director: Sally Coley Sales manager: Ruth Debnam Sales executive: Becky Haskett GENERAL ENQUIRIES Tel: +44 (0) 1747 825200 Fax: +44 (0) 1747 824065 info@gff.co.uk, www.gff.co.uk Guild of Fine Food, Guild House, 23b Kingsmead Business Park, Gillingham, Dorset SP8 5FB UK

PRINTED BY Blackmore, Dorset, UK

PUBLISHED BY The Guild of Fine Food Ltd www.gff.co.uk Š The Guild of Fine Food Ltd 2018. 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.

GOOD CHEESE 2018-19

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– FARMHOUSE CHEESEMAKERS –

VINTAGE RESERVE CHEDDAR CRAFTED IN SOMERSET SINCE 1833

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West Country Farmhouse Cheddar always matured for a minimum of two years to provide a cheddar that is powerful and complex with exceptional depth of flavour

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It has a slightly brittle and often crunchy texture as a result of its long and slow ageing

BARBERS.CO.UK TEL: +44 1749 860666 BARBER’S FARMHOUSE CHEESEMAKERS, MARYLAND FARM, DITCHEAT, SOMERSET, BA4 6PR

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GOOD CHEESE 2018-19

Counter culture

What’s new in the world of speciality cheese?

Triple Rose: a British version of France’s Brillat-Savarin

Rose blooms for Ballylisk New producer Ballylisk Dairies in Co Armagh has developed Triple Rose, a bloomy-rinded cows’ milk cheese.

Dairy farmer Dean Wright said that he had spotted a gap in the market for a British version of this rich French-style cheese. “Brillat-Savarin has a long history and always sells well, but there aren’t many British producers making triple cream cheeses,� he said.

Triple Rose, which has a creamy, lemony flavour, is made with pasteurised milk from the 200-acre farm’s 200-strong herd of Friesians. It is the only artisan cheese made in Northern Ireland from the farmer’s own milk pool.

It has recently been joined by a sister cheese washed in Armagh cider and a Triple Blue is currently being trialled.

WHALESBOROUGH CHEESE HAS UNVEILED a pasteurised goats’ milk cheese called Nanny Muffet. The naturally mould-ripened washed-curd cheese is made to the same recipe as its cows’ milk Miss Muffet, a two-star winner in Great Taste 2018.

With a natural edible rind, the smooth, creamy white paste of Nanny Muffet is “supple and pliable� but still retains its shape on a cheeseboard. It’s descibed as “zingy� on the palate, with well-balanced citrus notes. whalesboroughcheese.co.uk

DART MOUNTAIN CHEESE in Co Derry has added a soft goats’ milk cheese to its existing range of pasteurised cows’ milk varieties.

Light, fresh with a slight lemony taste and delicate rind, Carraig Ban – Irish for “white rock�, a local landmark – is made with goats’ milk sourced from one of Northern Ireland’s few goat farmers, in County Tyrone. dartmountaincheese.com

QUICKE’S HAS LAUNCHED LWV ƓUVW PL[HG milk cheese. Lady Prue, named after owner Mary Quicke’s mother, combines goats’ and cows’ milk in a 6kg cloth-bound cheese. It is aged for three to six months.

Said to be “youthful, pale and delicate�, the cheese has a subtle taste of goat with a hint of caramel. It was initially launched exclusively through the Heritage Cheese stall in London’s Borough Market. quickes.co.uk

ballyliskofarmagh.com

EXTREME CHEESE Who needs BASE jumping or parkour?

Cheese delivers all the thrills you need – on a plate.

We asked RUTH HOLBROOK, head of wholesale for Paxton & :KLWĆ“HOG WR name her top 10 ‘extreme cheeses’.

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1 Meltiest/Most Instagrammable It’s a tie between Raclette and Ogleshield. If you’re a foodie who frequents Instagram, you can’t avoid images featuring oodles of lava-like runnels of melting cheese, be it dribbled over piles of boiled potatoes and cornichons or luxuriously oozing out of a cheese toastie. These two cheeses are ‘best in class’ for melting.

3 Smelliest b

2 Most illegal Casu marzu – literally translates as ‘rotten/putrid cheese’ – is a traditional Sardinian sheep’s milk cheese that contains live insect larvae that help to ferment it. It’s a pretty funky little number and can’t be sold in the EU – hence illegal. If you want to enjoy this cheese you’ll need to go to Sardinia and get some on the black market.

5HEORFKRQbLV D world class cheese and incredibly versatile, but there’s no escaping the fact that they smell like babies’ QDSSLHV b7KHQ WKHUHĹ?V 9DFKHULQ Fribourgeois. If you’ve handled this cheese, after a few hours it has an aroma I can only call ‘fox’s bottom’ – cheesemongers out there will know what I mean. But the winner for me LVb5RTXHIRUWb QRW WKH FKHHVH EXW WKH MXLFH WKDW FRPHV RII LW b(YHQ a small dribble is like a cheeseEDVHG QHUYH DJHQW b$IWHU D OLWWOH while of handling it, the aroma is just overpowering.

GOOD CHEESE 2018-19

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Counter culture

Caerphilly maker pitches in with raw milk cheddar The maker of Gorwydd Caerphilly has entered the farmhouse cheddar world with Pitchfork – an unpasteurised, clothbound variety.

Weston-super-Marebased Trethowan’s Dairy is making the cheddar using bulk starters, traditional rennet and unpasteurised organic milk from Puxton Court Farm, where the dairy is now based.

“We’re only seven miles from Cheddar so it felt like we couldn’t not make cheddar,” said Todd Trethowan, who runs the business with brother Maugan.

Fellow West Country cheesemakers, including Westcombe, Montgomery and Quickes, had all provided help and advice with the launch of Pitchfork. trethowansdairy.co.uk

BRITISH FAVOURITE Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce is the not-so-secret ingredient in Croome Cuisine’s Worcester sauce & shallot cheese, which won gold in the ‘best additive cheese’s section at 2018’s Nantwich International Cheese Awards.

Croome also picked up the People’s Choice Cheese title at this year’s Royal Three Counties Show with its scrumpy & crunchy apple variety.

Set up in 2010 by cheesemaking veteran Nick Hodgetts, Croome Cuisine is focused on additive cheeses.

It’s latest launch, for Christmas 2018, is whisky, honey & ginger – made with honey from its own resident bees. croomecuisine.com

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BUSY TIMES AT ORKNEY’S THE ISLAND SMOKERY, which this year moved back into a refurbished factory in Stromness to continue production of its 10 flavoured cheddars and three smoked varieties.

Its latest product, Orkney butter, has found its way onto the menu of The Burj Khalifa restaurant in Dubai, while a seaweed butter, produced for up-and-coming Mara Seaweed is destined for export to the US. islandsmokery.co.uk

EXTREME CHEESE 4 Hardest Most cheesemongers would say Parmesan here. It’s a hard cheese to cut into and opening a whole one, which we do regularly at Paxton & Whitfield, is a labour of love. However, I’m going to nominate Mimolette for this title. Not only is it hard in texture but also a hard cheese to cut, as it’s in the shape of a ball.

I’ve occasionally seen Christmas temps have a meltdown over trying to cut Mimolette at the counter. It takes great skill and experience to do it properly and took me a year or two to master.

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SOMERSET’S WHITE LAKE CHEESE, a former British Cheese Awards’ Supreme Champion, has created a new semi-hard sheep’s milk cheese named after a historic rising from the county’s famous wetlands. Burrow Mump is washed in Somerset Cider Brandy and matured to around three months until it becomes sweet and salty with a mellow, orangey-brown rind. whitelake.co.uk

GOOD CHEESE 2018-19

9 Best

friend

5 Squeakiest This has to be halloumi. Once it’s cooked and you eat it, it makes a grating, squeaky noise on your teeth.

Champagne into the well in the top of the cheese, as the French traditionally do, you ramp up the sex appeal!

7 Heaviest 6 Ugliest (but also sexiest) For me this has to be Langres. Ugly, as it looks like a little brain with its crumpled orange skin. If you saw it outside of a cheese shop, just sitting on a plate, you probably wouldn’t think that it was a cheese.

But what makes it ugly also, in my humble opinion, makes it very sexy. Once you’ve cut into it and taste it, you have such a creamy, full flavour and if you add a little

RAM HALL FARM in Warwickshire, best known for its flying saucer-shaped raw sheep’s milk Berkswell, has launched an extra mature version.

Old Grenadier is aged for at least a year, giving it a hard, grainy texture and sharper flavour. twitter.com/ berkswellcheese

Has to be Emmental. In the run up to Christmas we get a whole 85kg wheel of it delivered to our Jermyn Street shop, and it’s a beast.

It takes pretty much the whole team and a serious plan of action to get it to its resting place in the maturing room.

8 Most romantic Most people would nominate Coeur de Neufchâtel here and that wouldn’t be a bad choice.

It’s heart shaped and also has a romantic story to it. However, I’m going to go a little bit left-field and nominate Tunworth.

This is such a glorious cheese to enjoy ‘a deux’, either on a cheeseboard or you could dial up the wow factor and bake it, like a Camembert, to enjoy together.

Lovely.

If you are looking for a cheese to enjoy with a friend over a bottle of red wine, in front of an open fire, in a cottage in the back of beyond, whilst you natter and put the world to rights, then nothing beats a great wedge of Stilton from Cropwell Bishop. It’s the king of cheeses.

10 Most ‘Marmite’ This has to be Gjetost from Norway, where they eat it on hot buttered toast for breakfast. It’s almost a cross between cheese and fudge. But people either love it or hate it. We have customers travel miles to our shops just to buy this cheese.

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GOOD CHEESE 2018-19 Gruyere_GuildFineFood_FamilyRecipe-T-230x315.indd 1

Publication: Guild of Fine Food

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Position: ****RHP****

Bleed Size: 236 x 321mm

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Counter culture

IN BRIEF

Etienne Voss/Dreamstime.com

...and carrying up hills Marginally less dangerous to limbs, more so to the cardiovascular system, Gold Hill Cheese Run involves lugging whole cheddars up the cobbled hill in Shaftesbury – still known to those of a certain age as the location for an iconic Hovis ad. Speeds of 70mph are not attained.

Extending your wardrobe Clothe yourself in splendour with a frock (or frock coat, for the fellas) made of melted cheese. Textile students at Bath Spa University made national headlines with their L ady-Gaga-meat-dress-inspired Versa-Cheese runway collection, spanning ballgowns, shoes and purses.

Berkshire-based Village Maid Cheese, well known for Wigmore, Waterloo and Spenwood, has launched a new washedrind cheese called Maida Vale. The semi-soft cheese is made with raw Channel Islands cows’ milk and washed with Treason IPA from Uprising Brewery in Windsor. villagemaidcheese.co.uk

Getting a loan Talk about “hard currency” - businessinsider.com lists Parmigiano-Reggiano among the “10 strangest things used for money around the world”.

In northern Italy, bank Credito Emiliano accepts valuable stocks of the nation’s favourite grating cheese as collateral for loans.

Feltham’s Farm, the cheesemaker behind Renegade Monk, has developed a sister cheese, Rebel Nun, matured to be “slightly drier and bluer”. felthamsfarm. wordpress.com The cheesemaker behind the unpasteurised raw milk blue Young Buck is opening a specialist cheese shop in Belfast.

Mike’s Fancy Cheese, founded by Mike Thomson, will continue producing cheese but the new outlet will provide additional storage and maturing space for Young Buck. mfcheese.com

Administering pet pills Struggling to get Bonzo the bulldog to down those pesky worming pills? Simply wrap a tablet in a cheese ball and watch the medicine go down [Note: Good Cheese cannot accept responsibility for lactose-intolerant dogs].

Lighting the way Another illuminating idea for using wax from Mini Babybels or Snowdonia Black Bombers: turn them into tea lights.

According to projectsharing site instrucables. com, it’s easy to craft your own candles with some melted cheese wax, metal bottle caps and bits of twisted tissue paper for the wicks.

Google “instructables Babybel candle” for the how-to.

Keeping doors open According to US cheese blogger Jill Erber of Cheesetique, in Del Ray, Virginia, a whole Emmental makes the ultimate door stop.

But at up to 30kg we think it could prove unwieldy. Try a 3kg waxed truckle of cheddar – then reuse the wax for candles!

Doing a Michelangelo The importance of cheese in figurative art cannot be overstated. From a lifesize cheddar version of astronaut Neil Armstrong by American artist Sarah Kaufmann to a mini Wallace & Gromit, honed from melted-down Babybel wax by Newcastle on Tyne’s Mitchell McLanaghan, exquisite examples of cheese sculpting abound.

(Disappointing fact: despite its name, Cheeseburn Sculpture Gardens in Tyne & Wear doesn’t have a single sculpture made of burnt cheese.)

SWNS

PAXTON & WHITFIELD has launched Potted Blue Stilton pots topped with alcohol jelly. Traditional rennet Stilton is hand-crumbled into classic glass jars and topped with one of two varieties of alcohol jelly: Tawny Port and Monbazillac. The London cheesemonger says the vibrant colours of both jellies contrasts with the Stilton to create an eye-catching product both in the jar and on a cheeseboard. paxtonandwhitfield.co.uk

Oxfordshire’s King Stone Dairy, best known for the soft, washed rind Rollright, has launched Evenlode: a lightly pressed tommestyle cheese with a washed rind and semihard texture. It is named after a local Cotswold village. rollrightcheese.com

Beautifying your skin Move over Moon Fruit - cream cheese is regularly touted as a treatment for dry skin, while a cooling mask of cottage cheese utterly eradicates those dark rings under the eyes.

Brighton/Dreamstime.com

CHEESEMAKERS OF CANTERBURY, the producer behind Ashmore Farmhouse and Kelly’s Canterbury Goat, has added a sheep’s milk cheese to its repertoire.

Made in the style of a camembert, Dargate Dumpy is a pasteurised soft cheese, matured for two to six weeks. When young the cheese has “a gentle sweetness” with a rounded flavour which grows stronger and wilder as it ages. cheesemakers ofcanterbury.co.uk

The Isle of Wight Cheese Co, best known for its eponymous soft blue, has launched two new cheeses after buying its local dairy farm. Blue Slipper is a soft, gooey cheese with blue mould on the rind, but no veins in the paste, while Borthwood is a soft, Camembert-style. isleofwightcheese.co.uk

instructables.com

CORNISH-BASED CURDS & CROUST has created two new bries: Smokey Duke and Russet Squire.

Gently smoked over oak, Smokey Duke is a mellow, creamy brie which breaks down if allowed to mature.

Russet Squire is washed in Cornish cider to deliver a full-flavoured, rich, sweet and fruity Cornish brie. curds-croust.co.uk

NINE USES FOR CHEESE (THAT DON’T INCLUDE EATING IT)

Rolling down hills...

Prize-winner for the most bonkers treatment of a truckle, the annual cheese rolling competition at Brockworth in Gloucestershire sees hundreds of runners chasing wheels of Double Gloucester for 200 yards down the near-shear sides of Cooper’s Hill. With the cheeses moving at up to 70mph, it’s not for the faint of heart or weak of ankle.

GOOD CHEESE 2018-19

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Talkin’ ’bout regeneration

Born four decades ago in a Covent Garden courtyard, British cheese champion Neal’s Yard Dairy is thinking a generation ahead with its latest state-of-the-art maturing rooms, as sales chief Jason Hinds tells MICK WHITWORTH 10

GOOD CHEESE 2018-19

FLICKING THROUGH archive editions of Good Cheese, a youthful but familiar face appears in a story about the newly-emerging British artisan cheese scene.

Published way back in October 1992, the piece was written by New Zealand-born cheese buff Juliet Harbutt, who would go on to launch the first British Cheese Awards. And the fresh-faced young man proferring a slate-full of Britain’s best in the

Profile

TODAY AND YESTERDAY Twenty-six years on from his first appearance in the pages of Good Cheese, Jason Hinds joined forces with photographer Isabelle Plasschaert to reproduce the original pose for 2018 - and to ring a few changes to his 1992 selection.

1992 cheeseboard: • Tyning (Mary Holbrook/Sleight Farm) • Wealden Round with garlic and chives (Neal’s Yard Creamery) • Perroche with dill (Neal’s Yard Creamery) • Chabis (Golden Cross Cheese) • Emlett (Mary Holbrook/Sleight Farm) • Little Ryding (Mary Holbrook/ Sleight Farm) • Bonchester (John Curtis) • Golden Cross (Golden Cross Cheese) • Ragstone (Neal’s Yard Creamery 2018 cheeseboard: • Berkswell (Berkswell Cheese) • Innes Burr (Innes Cheese) • Perroche with dill (Neal’s Yard Creamery) • St Jude (White Wood Diary) • Baron Bigod (Fen Farm Dairy) • Somerset Ricotta (Westcombe Dairy) • Tunworth (Hampshire Cheeses) • Innes Log (Innes Cheese) • Ragstone (Neal’s Yard Creamery

accompanying photo? It’s Jason Hinds, then a new recruit at Neal’s Yard Dairy, now its sales director and a leading light in the UK artisan food world.

It may be 26 years since that edition of Good Cheese appeared, but when, just for fun, we ping Hinds a scan of the feature by email, he remembers it well. “It’s been a long time,” he replies, “but I can still name all the cheeses!”

Hinds then gamely agrees to help us

reproduce that 1992 shot for 2018. It’s a chance to see how his cheese selection has changed in the intervening years (see panel, left) and also a great excuse to look inside Neal’s Yard’s new HQ and maturing rooms in Spa Terminus – part of a ground-breaking artisan food development by the firm beneath a south-east London railway viaduct.

It seems strange to describe any facility squeezed into an adjoining series of dark, damp 19th century railway arches as “state of the art”.

But as Hinds explains, this legacy of Victorian rail engineering is perfect for its new role.

“The Victorians created a sort of ‘urban cave’ environment with their extensive use of brick,” he says, “so the temperature stays incredibly steady throughout the year.

“It’s also quite a naturally humid environment, which is predisposed to keeping cheese well.”

But it’s not just about stacking cheese in an ‘urban cave’ and seeing what happens. While some big truckles of cheddar and territorials such as Sparkenhoe Red Leicester keep happily in these surroundings, a number of smaller, insulated rooms built within the arches give Neal’s Yard a total of seven different environments to bring on and store cheeses at their very best.

There’s a cold room, for example, used for fresh cheeses and butter, and for ripening of soft blues like Beenleigh and bloomy-rinded cows’ milk varieties like Tunworth and Baron Bigod.

A drying room is used to prepare the rinds on very young, mainly goats’ milk cheeses, like Innes logs. And there are four sealed maturing rooms, providing different combinations of temperature, humidity and air-flow - all infinitely tweakable – for washed rinds like St Cera and Cardo, bloomy white rinded Ragstone and St Jude, and so on.

Check out the labels on racks and the notes written on chalkboards outside each room, and you’ll find the cream of British cheesemaking represented, from newcomers like David Jowett’s King Stone Dairy to the venerable Cropwell Bishop Stilton.

For some cheesemakers – newer, less experienced producers, or those with tiny dairies – Neal’s Yard takes full charge of the ripening and maturing. With more established makers it increasingly works on “just in time” basis, with only a couple of weeks of stock held in the arches.

Teams from the dairy make regular monthly runs to visit producers up and down the UK, grading and selecting cheeses that will be held by the maker until needed in London. When Good Cheese visits, MD David Lockwood is away on the “northern run”. Hinds has recently been up to the Isle of Mull to grade cheddars. Another team makes regular visits to West Country cheddar makers Keen’s, Westcombe and Montgomery’s.

Neal’s Yard has taken on an almost legendary status since founder Randolph Hodgson began making fresh cheese and creme fraiche in a courtyard near London’s old Covent Garden market back in 1979. As he met and traded ideas with other emerging ‘new wave’ cheesemakers, like Robin Congdon of Devon’s Ticklemore Dairy, he first started selling their cheeses through his own shop, then morphed into a wholesaler, affineur and exporter, as well as a vocal champion of raw milk cheesemaking.

In fact, some would say Hodgson almost single-handedly created the British speciality cheese market, and his support for threatened regional styles helped earn him a Lifetime Achievement title in the 2015 BBC Food & Farming Awards. Mrs Kirkham’s Lancashire is just one raw milk cheese that nearly died at the hands of the health police before Hodgson intervened.

Between its famous shops in Covent Garden and Borough Market and its wholesale arm, which serves some of the world’s top restaurants and food halls, Neal’s Yard now sells around £11 million-worth of British artisan cheese each year.

Which gives you some idea of how important it remains as an outlet for small producers.

Hodgson largely takes a back seat in the business now – it’s run day-to-day by Hinds and

GOOD CHEESE 2018-19

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Profile

NEAL’S YARD NEWBIES At an open evening in Borough this autumn, Neal’s Yard introduced trade buyers to seven of its latest additions: Pitchfork cheddar Trethowan’s Dairy Chedworth Double Gloucester Manor Farm Dairy Stonebeck Wenleydale Low Riggs Farm Highfields (raw goats’ milk) Highfields Farm Dairy Evenlode (cows’ milk) King Stone Dairy Sparkenhoe Blue (raw cows’ milk) Sparkenhoe Farms Brefu Bach (raw sheep’s milk) Cosyn Cymru Cheese

David Lockwood, along with finance chief John Tasch – but he and ex-wife Anita LeRoy, founder of London’s Monmouth Coffee Co, remain major shareholders.

And it is Neal’s Yard and Monmouth that have together created the new Spa Terminus development in these Bermondsey arches. A standalone company, jointly owned by the two London foodie icons, Spa Terminus has taken a 40-year lease on 40,000 sq ft of space here. It not only houses the Neal’s Yard HQ and Monmouth’s roastery, but around two dozen tenants, all small, specialist food producers, including The Kernel Brewery, The Ice Cream Union and The London Honey Co, along with cheesemaker Kappacasein and French cheesemonger and affineur Mons.

According to Hinds, the move has fulfilled Hodgson and LeRoy’s original hopes for Borough Market - to create an urban community of producers, wholesalers and retailers. While Borough is now a tourist hot-spot, firmly focused on retail and food-to-go, Spa Terminus operates as a true food production and wholesale hub from Monday to Friday, with tenants opening to the public just for a few hours on Saturday morning.

And it’s strictly no hot takeaways. “If you start flipping burgers, we can break your lease,” says Hinds. “We want London food shoppers to come here to buy food – a bit like a French market. The minute you start pouring prosecco into plastic flutes, people will want to come but not to buy.”

Crucially, the long lease protects Neal’s Yard and its tenants from potentially exhorbitant rent increases for many years to come.

Our tour complete, it’s time to chat about that 1992 article – when the very idea of a British artisan cheese scene was still new, and small 12

GOOD CHEESE 2018-19

producers were in no way guaranteed a market.

“Back then there was no-one else really championing British cheeses,” says Hinds. “What’s encouraging about 2018 is that cheesemakers are so much more secure. Not only have you got the likes of Waitrose selling their cheese, which is great, but you’ve got a whole range of other businesses, from the wholesalers down to more recent up-and-coming retailers, championing their cause. It’s fantastic.”

If it hadn’t been for Hodgson, Hinds says, many of the cheeses on that 1992 cheeseboard would have ceased to exist. “Now, a lot of those businesses are secure and established. And not only that, but the fact there’s a market has inspired new people to go into cheesemaking, not just as a hobby but as a career.”

Where once there was a shortage of outlets, now demand is outstripping supply – not just in UK shops and restaurants but in export too. The challenge now, says Hinds, is finding sufficient quantities of quality cheese to keep buyers happy.

“So part of the work we’re involved in is identifying where those cheeses of the future are going to come from. And it’s tricky.”

Historically, many new cheeses were the result of farm diversification. With milk prices running below the cost of production for the last five years, the argument for adding value through cheesemaking is “compelling”. But Hinds is not convinced it’s the best way forward.

“If you’re farming for milk, your passion is for dairy farming, not necessarily cheesemaking. To make good quality cheese is really difficult, and to make it consistently is more difficult still.”

Farmers tend to be asset rich, he says. They have “stuff” – buildings, herds of cows - but they

don’t all have the inclination, acumen or expertise to turn their milk into cheese.

At the same time, those budding young entrepreneurs who do have passion for cheesemaking can find it impossible to get started. “If you want to make cheese on the farm, with the farm’s own milk, you need millions of pounds,” Hinds says. “Buying a farm, particularly in the south, involves a seven-figure sum. Putting animals in and equipping it is another seven figures. So it’s not an option.

“So for me, one vision of the future is about collaboration between farmers of excellent milk and transformers of that milk into cheese.”

It’s what the Trethowan family have done, moving their established Gorwydd Caerphilly operation from Wales to Somerset’s Puxton Court Farm. And on Hinds’ home doorstep in Gloucestershire, it’s what cheesemaking newcomers Neil Robinson and Dominique Lizé-Beaulieu have done in teaming up with Chedworth’s Manor Farm (see p16). That collaboration has yielded a new raw milk Double Gloucester, matching another of Hinds’ big hopes: young British cheesemakers, not seeking to produce a spin on a classic French cheese, but exploring their own roots.

“The British styles of cheese are so misunderstood,” he says, “and there aren’t many good interpretations of them. I’d like to think in a generation’s time there will be 40 or 50 new, high quality British farmhouse cheesemakers, making recipes more traditional to the UK, not rehashing classic Continental varieties.”

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GOOD CHEESE 2018-19

Territorial cheeses

Britain’s artisan cheesemakers have often seemed in thrall to the French. But as PATRICK McGUIGAN reports, a pack of enthusiastic patriots is breathing new life into our own often-neglected regional classics.

Return of the natives

IT’S HARD NOT TO FEEL a twinge of patriotic pride at the great British cheese renaissance. On its knees a few decades ago, the artisan sector has blossomed, with scores of new producers and new products. We now make more varieties of cheese than the French, according to some reports.

Time to break out the Union Jack bunting you might think. But the irony is that many of these new cheeses are actually based on French recipes.

From Tunworth (Camembert) and Beenleigh Blue (Roquefort) to Ragstone (St Maure) and Baron Bigod (Brie de Meaux), many of our most celebrated new cheeses wouldn’t look out of place on the counter of a fancy ‘fromager’ in Paris.

While British cheesemakers have been seduced by sexy Continentals, our native regional cheeses have remained strangely unloved. Only a

Territorials went industrial. They were generic and onedimentional. We’ve forgotten how good they can be.

Andy Swinscoe, The Courtyard Dairy handful of cheesemakers now produce traditional, raw milk ‘territorials’, such as Lancashire, Red Leicester, Caerphilly and Cheshire.

“We went through a period in the 90s and early noughties when all the new cheeses were very French in style – soft, oozy, real showstoppers,” says Andy Swinscoe, owner of The Courtyard Dairy in North Yorkshire. “Territorials went industrial. They became generic and one dimensional: crumbly, sharp, but none of the smooth complexity you can get from these cheeses. We’ve forgotten how good they can be.”

There are signs, however, that Brits are starting to rediscover the “smooth complexity” of territorials. Of eight new cheeses showcased

by Neal’s Yard Dairy at a mini-festival at its

Fresh, zesty Gorwydd Caerphilly was initially a struggle to sell, with buyers deterred by dry, sharp industrial versions. Now it’s on sale everywhere from London’s La Fromagerie to New York’s Dean & Deluca.

Bermondsey HQ in October, five were classic territorials, including a Wensleydale, Double Gloucester, Shropshire Blue, cheddar and a Stilton-style cheese.

Swinscoe has also been instrumental in helping two new producers develop raw milk Wensleydale cheeses: Fellstone, made at Whin Yeats Farm in Cumbria; and Stonebeck, from Low Riggs Farm in Nidderdale, Yorkshire, which was at the Neal’s Yard festival and will launch in 2019.

For Stonebeck’s Andrew and Sally Hattan, the decision to make Wensleydale was a no-brainer.

“Living in the Yorkshire Dales, with dry stone walls, traditional upland hay meadows, stone barns, with rare-breed Northern Dairy Shorthorn Cows, and occupying a farm where

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Andrew and Sally Hattan of Wensleydale producer Stonebeck say making brie or camembert would be ‘wholly inappropriate’ for a Yorkshire firm

GOOD CHEESE 2018-19

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Territorial cheeses

DOING THE DOUBLE When Dominique Lizé-Beaulieu and Neil Robinson started making cheese at their home in South East London, it was nothing more than hobby.

But as they became more interested in the origins of British cheese, the pastime evolved into a business that will next year see the couple launch Chedworth Double Gloucester.

The 8-10kg raw milk cheese, aged for four months, is a collaboration with Manor Farm in Chedworth, Gloucestershire, which has a herd of Shorthorns and Friesians.

“We’ve always eaten

uggle al n’s La

Neil Robinson and Dominique Lizé-Beaulieu: farm collaboration

and enjoyed territorial cheeses, so it was a simple decision for us to make one,” says Lizé-Beaulieu.

“Some people love a really strong cheddar, but there are definitely more customers developing a taste for more subtle flavours.

“Once people understand the farming behind it, and why it has

Wensleydale cheese was made 50 or 60 years ago; what could we make other than Wensleydale?” asks Andrew Hattan. “Brie or camembert would be wholly inappropriate, as would cheddar and certainly Lancashire!”

The Hattans will only make cheese when the

GOING WITH THE TERRITORY Sparkenhoe Blue From the makers of Sparkenhoe Red Leicester, this new blue is based on a Stilton recipe, but cannot be labelled as such because it is made with raw milk.

It has a wonderful rounded flavour – sweet, creamy and savoury.

Colwick Made by Leicestershirebased Belvoir Ridge Creamery, this fresh cows’ milk cheese has a history dating back 300 years. It weighs just 90g and is lactic and tangy with a distinctive bowl shape. Nice topped with fresh fruit.

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Neal’s Yard Dairy

Highfields Highfield Farm Dairy in Staffordshire is best known for lactic goats’ cheeses such as Innes Log, but the farm has recently developed this Caerphilly-style cheese using raw milk from its own herd of goats. Aged for two to four months, it has a natural grey rind and crumbly texture.

Fresh, milky and aromatic.

these mellow flavours, they appreciate it more.”

After successful trial batches in 2018, Manor Farm has now invested in cheesemaking and maturing rooms, with additional support from a £1,000 bursary from the Specialist Cheesemakers Association.

The cheese is based on information about Double Gloucester found in the 18th century Rural Economy of Gloucestershire by William Marshall, who described it as “mellow, delicate, rich and pungent without being sharp”.

“These kinds of cheeses don’t pack a big punch, but the flavours are long and lasting,” says Lizé-Beaulieu.

20-strong herd is out at pasture, while annual production is unlikely to surpass three tonnes – tiny even by artisan standards.

They are also trying to recreate pre-war techniques for making Wensleydale. “We want to reopen the debate on what is Wensleydale,” says Hattan. “The pre-war cheese was very different to what we eat now. It’s been like an archaeological process, rediscovering the way Wensleydale used to be made.

“We lost so much knowledge of cheesemaking after World War II because of things like rationing, female emancipation and the rise of the Milk Marketing Board, which guaranteed a milk price for farmers.

“So as well as written records and recipes, we’ve had to work out how Wensleydale used to be made by looking at pre-war photos of women making the cheese in their kitchens.”

The resulting cheese has a much softer and more open texture than industrial Wensleydale with a rich, buttery flavour that reflects the cows’ grass-based diet.

Todd Trethowan, co-owner of Trethowan’s Dairy in Somerset, also had to undertake historical research when he and brother Maughan first launched Gorwydd Caerphilly more than 20 years ago.

“We found old recipes, but recipes don’t tell the whole story,” he says. “I learned much more by working with [cheesemaker] Chris Duckett, whose family had been making Caerphilly for three generations. I used to ask him, ‘Why are we doing this?’ And he would say, ‘That’s the way my dad did it.’”

Selling Caerphilly back then was an uphill task because people’s perceptions of the cheese were clouded by dry, sharp industrial versions.

Gorwydd is a very different proposition: fresh and zesty with an earthy, savoury layer beneath the natural rind.

“We used to have to get people to taste it to sell it,” says Trethowan. “But everyone is much

Gorwydd’s Todd and Maugan Trethowan with their first batch of Pitchfork: the first raw milk cheddar launched in a generation

more knowledgable now and that’s down to the hard work of retailers like Neal’s Yard and Paxtons.

“People used to ask, ‘What’s the strongest cheese you’ve got?’ But they are now more interested in where it’s from and why it tastes the way it does.”

Growing interest in traditional British cheeses is part of the reason why the company decided to launch a new cheddar, after moving production from Wales to the West County in 2014. Pitchfork is a classic cloth-bound cheddar, made with raw milk and traditional rennet, aged for around a year.

“We’re five miles from Cheddar and felt we just had to do it,” says Trethowan.

Before the war there were hundreds of farmhouse cheesemakers in Somerset.

Remarkably, Pitchfork is the first traditional, raw milk cheddar launched in the county in a generation, joining cheeses from just three other producers: Westcombe, Montgomery’s and Keen’s.

It’s a reminder that the revival of British territorials has only just begun. “It’s great there are new cheeses being launched, but I don’t think we’ve seen enough of a resurgence,” says Andy Swinscoe. “More needs to be done.”

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GOOD CHEESE 2018-19

Norway

Pride of place

A UNESCO ‘creative city of gastronomy’, Bergen this year hosts the 2018 World Cheese Awards. As ELYSE GLICKMAN discovers, it’s a source of pride for all involved in Norway’s artisan cheese renaissance.

Astrid Aasen, master cheesemaker at Gangstad Gårdsysteri in Trøndelag – the first farmhouse producer to make cheese with its own milk after a post-war ban was lifted

A CUT ABOVE These World Cheese Awards winners and contenders have set the bar higher in Norway’s emergent cheese industry.

Cheese: Kraftkar Producer: Tingvollost Region: Nordmøre, Western Norway A pungent but mellow Roquefortinspired cheese, crafted from unskimmed cow’s milk and cream, with an injected culture of the mould Penicillium roqueforti. tingvollost.no

Cheese: Granstubben Producer: Gangstad Gårdsysteri Region: Trøndelag, Middle Norway This washed-rind cheese, aged with red bacteria, is at its best when baked in the oven and served melted with hearty breads or crackers. ysteri.no

➔

THE 2018 WORLD CHEESE AWARDS were still two months away, but on Friday 31st August the cream of Norway’s cheesemakers were ready for their close-up.

It was the opening day of the Bergen Food Festival, and 24 producers gamely doled out samples of their finest creations along what was billed as ‘Norway’s largest cheese table’.

Local attendees experienced how the humble brunost (brown cheese) of their childhoods had been elevated to new levels of sophistication and just how diverse the Norway cheeseproducing universe had become.

2016 world champion Kraftkar, an expressive blue crafted by Tingvollost, drew enthusiastic reactions, as did cheeses from other producers – Bo Jensen Dairy’s Lille Aske, Tine’s Kvit Geitost Lagra and Eggen Gardsysteri’s Fjellblå – that had earned Gold and even Super Gold at the 2017 competition in London.

This dress rehearsal for the first Norwegian staging of the World

Cheese Awards was a hands-down success. But the stakes were always going to be higher in November, with Norwegian cheesemakers coming up against their counterparts from southern Europe, Australia, the US, UK, and more on their home turf.

The real question now, though, for Norway’s cheese artisans is not which expressions of their “cream” rise to the top in Bergen, but how their cheeses are received by consumers in Norway and overseas.

The rebirth of Norwegian cheese has been 35 years in the making, according to Agneta Linden Moen of tour company Up Norway. Its Cheese Trail tours (upnorway.com/ journeys/cheese) through the Oslo, Trøndelag, and Lofoten regions take cheese-lovers behind the scenes at several small dairies whose wares have featured in the awards.

Bernt Bucher-Johannessen, managing director of national farm tourism body HANEN, notes it was the “cheese revolution” happening at those dairies that ultimately helped secure Bergen

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Norway

➔ A CUT ABOVE Cheese: Capra Producer: Aalan Gård Region: Lofoten Organic pasteurised milk from the farm’s free-range goats go into this this small-batch, semi-hard cheese. aalan.no

Cheese: Steinfjording Havsmak Producer: Lofoten Gårdsysteri Region: Lofoten This organic goats’ cheese gets its herbaceous, earthy character from three different seaweeds added during production. lofoten-gardsysteri.no

– designated a UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy in 2015 – the 2018 event. “This year’s competition gives our finest cheese producers an international stage to show how far they have come,” he says. “With cheese as an essential daily staple, it also provides a fantastic arena for promoting Norwegian cuisine with residents and visitors alike.”

According to Linden Moen, Norway was for many years a very “cheese poor” country, with perhaps only 20 varieties on the market, all mass-produced. She says: “Small farms stopped producing traditional cheeses after World War II, with a ban on home-cheesemaking in place [instituted by the Norwegian Food Safety Authority] and large commercial dairies taking over.

“When the ban was lifted in the 1980s, small producers interested in reviving the art of cheesemaking studied the craft and regained knowledge of nearly forgotten recipes.

“They also became interested in creating new cheeses inspired by varieties from England, France, and Holland. This led to the 200 small producers we have today.”

Astrid Aasen is master cheesemaker at Gangstad Gårdsysteri in Trøndelag, central Norway. She recalls: “When we started making cheese 20 years ago, we were the first dairy farm to produce from our own milk.” Once the ban was lifted, Gangstad was authorised to sell its cheese throughout the country.

As time went on, national dairy farmers’ co-operative TINE shifted its position on artisan cheesemakers. Rather than view them as competition, it now saw the economic benefits of diversifying Norway’s cheese output. It reached out to assist smaller cheesemakers with sales and distribution, which in 20

GOOD CHEESE 2018-19

Cheese: Høvding Sverre Producer: Orkladal Ysteri Region: Trøndelag, Middle Norway A mellow and mild semi-hard variety, inspired by Swiss cheeses and matured for three-to-six months. orkladalysteri.no

turn helped advance the Norwegian cheese revolution.

Today, while TINE tankers collect bulk milk produced by member farmers, guaranteeing them a market, members are not obliged to sell everything to the co-op and can set some milk aside for artisanal cheesemaking.

Brunost symbolically represents the rescue of Norwegian farmhouse cheese from industrial production.

At summer’s Bergen Food Festival, the cream of the nation’s artisan producers were showcased on ‘Norway’s Biggest Cheese Table’

Cheese: Råblå Producer: Grindal Ysteri Region: Trøndelag, Middle Norway Raw-milk blue made in two variants: 100% cows’ milk or a mixture of cows’ and goats’ milk. grindalysteri.no

Before World War II, it was made by boiling whey and white cheese remnants in iron kettles over a fire.

Recipes varied from farm to farm, determined by whether farmers had cows, goats, or both. It was commonly served as a dessert and a nutritional iron supplement for children.

Post-war industrialization nearly wiped out this traditional process, but modern cheese artisans have not only revived brunost but diversified it. Starting with sometimes centuries-old regional recipes, they have made new versions of this and other farmhouse cheeses by adding or changing ingredients.

According to Linden Moen, this reflects a proud tradition of letting no food go to waste in making finished products.

The rise of Neo-Nordic and NeoFjordic cuisines, meanwhile, has also helped place Norway on the world cheese map. Copenhagen’s twoMichelin-star Noma, for example, is using Avdem Gardsysteri’s brunost in one of its best-selling desserts.

Norwegian chefs, including those who have won the Bocuse D’Or and other competitions, have shown diners at home and abroad that there’s more to Norway’s natural beauty than fjords and mountains.

According to producer Yngve Tingstad of Thorbjørnrud Ysteri, cheese is a living product personalised by every maker, who uses his or her instincts when adding something new to the mix. “Mould and natural bacteria in the rooms where cheese is crafted play a role, as does Norwegian milk with its high protein content, fat, flavour profile,” he explains. “While cheeses differ by region and approach, we’re all getting uniquely indigenous cheese, no matter where a recipe is sourced.

“Whether it’s English cheddar or

Cheese: Fjelldronning Producer: Avdem Gardsysteri Region: Lesja, Southern Norway Fjelldronning is a washed-rind raw cows’ milk cheese aged for several months. avdem.no

Krafkar [which means “strong man” and is inspired by Roquefort], it becomes something entirely new.”

Cheesemakers and their supporters point out that distribution remains one of the biggest challenges in a country nearly twice the size of Great Britain but with a population of just 5.3 million. Targeted messaging about buying local is key, and producers have to find ways to educate the public on why buying artisanal cheese supports the community at large and is worth the extra cost.

“What’s still challenging for us is selling everything we produce, especially if a facility is located on a small island or a remote valley in the middle of the country,” says Marielle De Roos of Logo Lofoten Gårdsyster in Bøstad.

“There’s the added task of figuring out how to get those cheeses into the hands of distributors who, in turn, can get the cheeses into Norway’s greater market place.”

But cheesemakers have been persistent, even winning political support to generate more public awareness of their contribution to Norway’s culinary legacy. At Metmerk, a foundation that protects the integrity of agricultural products through quality marks and branding advice, Anne Mette Johnsen says: “With the public gaining greater interest in Norwegian food as a cuisine and not just a source of nutrition, they are getting the value of buying local and paying a little extra for higher quality.”

For Norway’s producers, hosting the 2018 competition is more than just a source of national pride. “It’s not just about winning competitions and competing with Holland, France, Italy, and others,” says Linden Moen.

“We’re taking pride in the work we’ve put into this endeavour.”

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Comté: A truly co-operative cheese FOR OVER TEN CENTURIES, villagers of the Jura Massif in Eastern France have lovingly crafted Comté, a unique and delicious PDO cheese. This stunning mountain region is home to over 2,500 family farms with over 150,000 cows, dedicated to producing the highest quality of raw milk from the Montbéliarde and French Simmental breeds.

Each of these cows must have a minimum hectare of land to graze on, feeding on natural grass and harvested hay.

Comté’s methods of production are still based on the original co-operative approach and artisan traditions that it was founded on.

Every single day of the year, the cheese is crafted in over 150 small village cheese dairies, the fruitières.

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GOOD CHEESE 2018-19

Often situated in the heart of the village, each fruitière receives milk from the dedicated dairy farms situated within an 8-mile radius to guarantee its absolute freshness.

The newly formed cheese wheels are moved to one of 13 specialised affinage houses across the region – each with its own unique maturing method – where it is aged for a minimum of 4 months, up to 24 or more months.

Today, Comté is not only loved by millions of people in France, but all over world, including countless celebrity chefs and top restaurants.

With its array of delicious flavours (it has 83 recognised aromatic descriptors!), Comté is a perfect addition to many mouth-watering seasonal dishes, giving each dish a naturally unique flavour.

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BUBBLE & SQUEAK WITH MELTED COMTÉ AND FRIED EGG A wonderful way to use up leftover vegetables over the festive season in a comforting winter’s lunch.

Serves 4 • 400g cavolo nero • 60g unsalted butter • 1 tablespoon sunflower oil, for frying • 900g cooked mashed potato • 8 spring onions, trimmed and finely sliced • 200g 18-24 month aged Comté, coarsely grated • 4 eggs 1. C ut out the central rib of each leaf of cavolo nero and discard, then cut the leaves into wide strips. Melt 30g of the butter in a saucepan and add the cavolo nero, a splash of water and season with salt and black pepper. Turn heat up high and stir the cavolo nero to coat it in the butter, water and seasoning, then turn the heat down to medium, cover the pan and cook for about 3 minutes, until it is wilted, giving the pan a shake every now and then. Drain off any excess liquid.

2. H eat the remaining 30g butter and about ½ tablespoon oil in a

large non-stick frying pan over a high heat, then tip in the potato and spring onion and fry. As it cooks, you want it to brown and char slightly - make sure to spread it out over the base of the pan and keep breaking it up and scraping the bottom of the pan so that the lovely, crunchy brown bits are mixed in.

3. Mix in the cavolo nero and then the Comté and turn the heat down to medium. When the Comté starts to melt, stop turning the mixture over - just press it down every now to flatten the surface and cook over a low heat until it is golden brown on the bottom.

4. Meanwhile, in a separate frying pan, heat ½ tablespoon of oil and fry the eggs over a medium heat so that the whites are set but the yolks are still runny - season each egg with a little salt and black pepper as they are cooking. Place the four fried eggs on top of the bubble & squeak and serve in the frying pan for everyone to help themselves.

COMTÉ FONDUE BITES A delicious canapé, perfect for parties! Cubes of bread drenched in a mixture of Comté and cream cheese with a hint of Dijon mustard, baked until crisp and bubbling.

These simply melt in the mouth and your guests will devour them. And one of the best things about them is that you make them in advance and freeze them, simply popping them in the oven when you’re ready to serve them, making them the most effortless party food ever!

Makes about 60 cubes • 170g butter • 170g 12-14 month aged Comté • 100g cream cheese • 3 egg whites • 1 white loaf of bread (not fresh - it needs to be at least a day old), crusts cut off 1. Cut bread into cubes about 2.5cm in size - you want evenly-sized cubes of fluffy, crustless bread.

2. In a saucepan, melt the butter, Comté and cream cheese over a

Recipes © Laura Pope

low-medium heat, whilst gently stirring to mix together. Remove the pan from the heat, season with salt and black pepper (the cheese makes it quite salty already, but the egg whites will dilute the flavour).

3. Whisk the egg whites until they are stiff and fold them into the cooled cheese mix.

4. Dip the cubes of bread into the mixture, ensuring all sides are well coated.

5. Place onto baking trays lined with baking parchment or silicone sheets, ensuring the cubes aren’t touching one another, and freeze (if using baking parchment, only do one layer per baking sheet or they will stick to the paper). Once frozen, store the cubes in a sealed bag in the freezer.

6. Preheat your oven to 180℃ fan / 200℃ normal, lay the frozen cubes onto lined baking trays (make sure to leave spaces between them) and cook for 10 to 15 minutes (check they aren’t burning).

7. Serve immediately, but ensure they’re cool enough to pick up in fingers before eating!

For more information, please go to: www.comtecheese.co.uk @comte_cheese

Comte Cheese UK

ComteCheeseUK GOOD CHEESE 2018-19

23

Amid the rolling pastures of the Green Mountain State, brothers Mateo and Andy Kehler created a cheesemaking and maturing hub that has helped redefine American artisan cheese, says PATRICK McGUIGAN

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GOOD CHEESE 2018-19

IT’S A FEW DAYS AFTER Jasper Hill Farm celebrated its 15th anniversary and Mateo Kehler is still smiling about the party.

“It was epic,” chuckles the co-founder of one of America’s most pioneering and influential cheese companies. “We had a bonfire as big as a house and didn’t get to bed until 3am.”

Never one to do things by halves, the Vermont cheesemaker and maturer also organised seminars on everything from cheese crystals to ruminant nutrition, plus tours of the farm, a huge feast and live music from an oldtime string band in the fields near Greensboro where the farm’s 50 Ayrshire cows normally

graze.

There was even a High School-style science fair with different departments at Jasper Hill creating exhibits to explain what they do, from a coagulation station to turn milk into curd to a cheese fondue volcano. “The amount of passion they brought was one of the most inspirational things of the whole weekend,” says Kehler.

It’s this kind of passion that has transformed US cheese in the past 20 years.

Once known as the land of plastic orange slices, the country has become a hotbed of artisan cheesemaking thanks to a new generation of young, cool cheesemakers, mongers and restaurateurs.

Bob Montgomery

Gold in the hills

USA

Vermont, which has a long history of dairy farming, is at the vanguard of the revolution, with Jasper Hill leading the charge. Its raw milk Bayley Hazen Blue was named the best unpasteurised cheese in the world at the 2014 World Cheese Awards and its spruce-wrapped Harbison won Best in Show at this year’s prestigious American Cheese Society awards.

Around 275 tonnes of cheese are made each year at the 260-acre farm and a second site at the Vermont Food Venture Center. But the company also takes cheeses from four other Vermont dairies and matures them in stateof-the-art cellars. These are co-branded under The Cellars at Jasper Hill label, pushing total output to 750 tonnes. That might sound a lot but it’s a tiny fraction of what is churned out by industrial cheese manufacturers.

The US boom in artisan cheese has been driven by similar forces at play in Britain.

Interest in provenance, craft skills and animal welfare have played their part, while rock bottom milk prices have forced dairy farmers to diversify or face closure.

In 2003 when Kehler and his brother Andy first started making cheese, there were around 1,400 dairy farms in Vermont. Today there are fewer than 750 with milk prices stuck at below the cost of production. “When we were kids in Greensboro there were 35 farms,” explains Kehler. “There are nine now and we were the first new one in a generation.”

The links with the UK, which has also seen hundreds of dairy farms close, don’t end there.

Before setting up the business Kehler spent formative spells working at Neal’s Yard Dairy

and with British cheesemakers Ticklemore, Ram Hall and Doddington Dairy.

“Our philosophical tap root started in Neal’s Yard Dairy,” he says. “Bayley Hazen was inspired by Robin Congden [the founder of Ticklemore, which makes Devon Blue]. We changed the shape and the drainage, and added a natural rind, and ended up with a completely unique and different cheese.”

The Kehlers are still good friends with Neal’s Yard even though they are both operating in the same market - Neal’s Yard has built a thriving export industry to the US, targeting the same high-end retailers and restaurants as

Vermont, which has a long history of dairy farming, is at the vanguard of the artisan cheese revolution

Jasper Hill.

“You might think we are competitors, but in fact we’re both connecting consumers with good cheese,” says Kehler. “If somebody discovers Kirkham’s Lancashire, eventually they’ll come to Harbison.”

Jasper Hill’s progressive business model, which is focused on quality, innovation and collaboration, has lead to some remarkable initiatives, such as a $1m hay-drying facility to improve the microbes in its milk and cheese microbiology research projects with leading scientists.

But the maturing cellars have arguably had the most impact on the business’ growth and its mission to support local farming.

Constructed in 2008 at a cost of $3m, Jasper Hill Cellars comprise seven temperatureand humidity-controlled rooms buried in a hillside at the farm. Each one is run differently depending on the cheese inside, so two rooms are dedicated to Cabot Clothbound – a bandaged cheddar from a large Vermont cheesemaking co-operative, which helps underpin the whole operation – but others are dedicated to soft cheeses, washed rinds and blues.

“We are actively working to increase the appreciation of mouldy cheese,” explains Zoe Brickley, Jasper Hill’s sales, marketing and education manager. “We can triple the perception of value by having mould on a cheese.

“So instead of $8/lb for regular cheddar, we have a $25/lb cave-aged cheddar. You get more complexity of flavour from the mould and the curing effect gives you a drier texture.”

Explaining to shoppers why it’s worth paying more for mouldy cheese is a big focus for Jasper Hill, which runs its own cheesemonger camp at the farm and supports events such as the Cheesemonger

Blake Noyes

Herb Swanson

Colin Clark

Bob Montgomery Brothers Andy (left) and Mateo Kehler brought Britain’s artisan cheesemaking philosophy to the service of Vermont dairy farmers

GOOD CHEESE 2018-19

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When we were kids in Greenboro there were 35 dairy farms. There are nine now, and we were the first new one in a generation.

Colin Clark

Invitational competition.

“We think it’s really important to work with other cheesemakers and mongers to build a market for $30-a-lb cheese,” says Brickley. “Our marketing focuses on cheesemongers because they are the people that can tell our story.

“Education is so important to help cheesemongers understand what we do. We need people on the front-line explaining why our cheese costs more and getting cheese in people’s mouths.”

The mission to spread the word on curd across the US ultimately comes back to the fields of Vermont where Jasper Hill and friends were partying not so long ago.

“Our goal is to plug as many acres in a 15-mile radius into producing milk for cheese, so we can suck the cash out of places where there is money and redistribute it here,” says Kehler. “It’s not going to save the Vermont dairy industry, but it does leverage what we have here and make our area and the lives of people that live here better.” jasperhillfarm.com

SIX FROM THE CELLARS Because of its collaborative approach, Jasper Hill’s product range takes a bit of understanding. There are 12 core cheeses under The Cellars at Jasper Hill brand, which are all made in Vermont at six dairies (two owned by Jasper Hill) with milk from six herds. Here’s our pick from each of the dairies.

Bayley Hazen Blue Made with raw milk from the Ayrshire cows at the main Greensboro farm, this natural-rinded blue has a fudge-like texture, toasted-nut sweetness, and anise spice character.

Harbison Vermont’s answer to Vacherin. Harbison is a soft, bloomy-rinded cows’ milk cheese, wrapped in strips of spruce. It is made

by Jasper Hill at the Vermont Food Venture Center.

Cabot Clothbound A pasteurised cheddar made by Cabot Creamery, but wrapped in cloth and aged for around a year in the Cellars, until it has a crumbly texture and savoury, tangy notes.

Oma Made by Sebastian von Trapp on his family’s dairy farm in Waitsfield, this Tomme-style cheese is made with organic Jersey milk. Sweet, earthy and meaty.

Landaff Dairy farmer Doug Erb developed raw milk Landaff after learning to make Caerphilly with Chris Duckett in Somerset.

Beneath the earthy natural rind, the paste has a buttermilk tang and savoury finish.

Weybridge An organic, lactic-set cheese with a delicate bloomy rind from the Scholten Family Farm in Weybridge. It has a gooey, mushroomy breakdown and a zesty, milky centre.

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Kentish Handmade Cheese A traditional unpasteurised, cloth bound cellar matured hard cheese from the county of Kent.

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Japan

Land of the rising raclette?

Japan is the world’s biggest importer of cheese, but behind the huge numbers is a small but vibrant world of artisan cheesemakers, blending Western and uniquely Japanese techniques, as MALORY LANE explains Natural Cheese Contest.

This is the purpose of my trip, to escape Tokyo and to purchase some Takesumi for myself.

I approach the cheese room and take my place in a long line of customers outside. Though the shop officially opens at 11am, the queuing begins an hour earlier. Others are departing with cheese in hand and it becomes clear that the prize winner is selling out fast.

By noon, my fears are realized; Fromagerie Sen has sold out of every cheese, including my precious Takesumi.

In the West, Japan has never been synonymous with cheese. There are common misconceptions surrounding dairy in Asia: Asians are lactose-intolerant, most don’t care for milk or cheese, and there’s no genuine history of cheese

production. In reality, as far back as Anglo-Saxon rule in Britain, cheese had already made its way into the fabric of Japanese society.

Cows have long played an important role in Japanese agriculture. Along with the introduction of Buddhism over a thousand years ago, the upper classes and imperial households generated a demand for cows’ milk, specifically for the production of So, Japan’s only native variety of cheese. With similarities to tofu, So is made from the skimmed layers of boiled milk. Traditionally valued for its medicinal properties, it is also served as an offering to the gods, and it can still be found in the country’s old capital regions of Kyoto and Nara.

With the arrival of Portuguese and Dutch traders in the 1500s, European cheese

➔

JUST BEYOND TOKYO, the rice-farming town of Ōtaki in Chiba Prefecture is hardly an hour and a half’s journey by car. Despite its proximity to the world’s largest metropolis, it appears untouched

by Western influence. Yet, as any true Tokyo turophile will tell you, the area is home to an award-winning newcomer to artisan cheese whose name contains more than a nod to the French.

Chiyo Shibata is the head cheesemaker at Fromagerie Sen. She makes cheese in the small building next to her home, which, from the outside, looks like a tiny Buddhist temple. The dairy doubles as a shop, which is only open to the public on the first Sunday of the month.

The popularity of Fromagerie Sen skyrocketed after Takesumi, Shibata’s bamboo ash-dusted creation, won first place at last year’s All Japan

ART FOR THE TABLE A new art scene is emerging in Japan, using not paint or sculpture but cheese, writes Mick Whitworth. Dubbed simply “Cheese Art”, it has been pioneered by Toshiharu Kaneko, whose work has been gracing tables at major events at home and abroad, including the opening of the Saison Contemporary Art Museum, one of Japan’s leading cultural centres.

Cheeses of contrasting colours are cut and shaped in designs that reflect Japanese ideas and symbolism. One example uses hexagons of cheese made alternately from the paste and the rind. Mimicking tortoise shells, hexagons are considered to be symbols of good luck in Japan.

While other designs seize on themes of nature or love, they have one thing common – the pieces are cut into portion-sized pieces. This is art you can eat.

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Japan

Fromagerie Sen has become a destination store – not least for food writer Malory Lane (below right) – when cheesemaker Chiyo Shibata (below) opens her doors to the public once a month

➔

gained access to the Japanese markets.

However, due to a 220-year period of isolationist foreign policy, it would be centuries before the development of Western-style cheese production.

After Japan opened its doors in the late 19th century, the Hokkaido Development Commission hired an American named Edwin Dun to bring agricultural machinery and livestock to Japan.

Western cheesemaking traditions, including largescale American cheese production, had arrived.

Two of those original Hokkaido cheese producers currently exist in the form of major corporations, namely Meiji and Yukijirushi. As the largest makers in Japan, they’re producers of mass-market processed cheeses, deriving most of their raw materials from Australia, New Zealand, and the United States. The huge volumes necessary for production contribute to the fact that Japan is currently the world’s largest importer of cheese.

Despite this history of mass production, Japan has recently experienced its own homegrown artisan cheese movement. It all began with the success of a few influential cheese entrepreneurs in the 1980s.

Rumiko Honma opened Fermier, a cheese shop in central Tokyo, to showcase quality European cheeses in 1986. Around the same time, Nozomu Miyajima returned to Japan after studying dairy sciences at the University of Wisconsin and started Kyodogakusha Shintoku Farm in Hokkaido on land gifted to him by the

Miyajima’s most sought-after cheeses are Sakura and Sakura Affine, made each spring with a touch of fresh cherry blossom and shiso leaf

local government. With underground ageing caves and biodynamic farming practices, Kyodogakusha exemplifies the Japanese dedication to craftsmanship and perfection.

Adapting his cheeses to the Japanese palate, Miyajima uses local ingredients to transform traditional European cheese types into unique Japanese varieties. One such is Sasayuki, which is a camembert-style cheese elegantly wrapped in a bamboo leaf. Tokachi Raclette, named after one of Japan’s foremost dairy regions in southern Hokkaido, has won awards in both Europe and the United States. But, Miyajima’s most sought-after

The Mount Fuji-shaped goats’ milk Fujiyama from Mirasaka Fromage

Kyodogakusha’s bamboo-leaf-wrapped camembert-style Sasayuki

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Mirasaka Fromage’s Fromage de Mirasaka Chevre

cheeses are Sakura and Sakura Affine, made each spring with a touch of fresh cherry blossom and shiso leaf.

While Hokkaido may well be thought of as the centre of the Japanese dairy world, there are over 200 cheesemakers scattered across the country.

In the mountains of Hiroshima Prefecture, Masanori Matsubara at Mirasaka Fromage focuses his attention on the health of the herd. For years, Matsubara has worked alongside his goats and Brown Swiss cows to clear the land and thin the nearby forest. Now, his herd roams freely in “mountain grazing” during the day and returns to the farm each night for milking.

Mirasaka Fromage’s animals have returned the favour with delicious milk that’s earned Matsubara high levels of praise for his eyecatching cheeses. As an ode to Mount Fuji, Mirasaka’s Fujiyama is a mountain-shaped goats’ cheese dusted in either ash or red chilli pepper.

Its signature cheese, Fromage de Mirasaka, comes wrapped up like a present in oak-leaves and string.

Both cows’ and goats’ milk versions of Mirasaka have received awards at the Mondial du Fromage in France.

Back at Fromagerie Sen, I content myself with the chance to meet cheesemaker Chiyo Shibata before heading back to Tokyo. A microbiologist by day, Shibata makes obvious use of her background in the lab as she experiments with new cheesemaking styles on the weekends.

As we discuss her recent success, Shibata conveys an extraordinary blend of warmth and intelligence. After a short pause and a knowing smile, she wanders off to a back room before returning with a single tiny dome of awardwinning Takesumi. A smile stretches across my face. I won’t be returning to Tokyo empty-handed.

• Malory Lane’s love of cheese was kindled while working on goat and sheep farms in Asia and Europe, and she went on to learn about cheesemaking in Israel. Now living in Tokyo, she spreads the word through her blog and website, The Geography of Cheese.

St Andrews Farmhouse Cheese Co Falside Farm Pittenweem KY10 2RT

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Eating out

THREE CHEESE RESTAURANTS TO TRY The Cheese Bar, Camden A temple to artisan British cheese in Camden Market, The Cheese Bar offers dishes such as mozzarella sticks, five cheese macaroni and grilled cheese sandwiches. It has even been known to serve a blue cheese ice cream.

The restaurant will soon be joined by a second in Covent Garden, after a successful £200,000 crowdfunding campaign.

Champagne+Fromage, Liverpool The new branch of Champagne+Fromage in Liverpool’s Grand Central Bazaar is the minichain’s first restaurant outside the Capital and its fifth in total. It specialises in grower Champagnes matched with Continental cheese and charcuterie sharing platters, plus raclette and whole baked cheeses.

Alpes, Brixton Street food business Raclette Brothers opened its first restaurant in a converted shipping container at Pop Brixton in May 2018.

As the name suggests, Alpine dishes are a focus, including raclette served at the table, fondue and tartiflette, which are both made with Continental and British cheeses.

Toastie and chilled A new crop of ultra-informal cheese eateries reflects our love affair with laid-back, local, tapas-style dining, says PATRICK McGUIGAN IT TURNS OUT the old dinner party argument about whether cheese should be served before or after dessert was entirely missing the point.

A new generation of cheese restaurants is proving that people actually want to eat cheese as a starter, main course or mid-afternoon snack.

“It’s a new way of eating,” says Hugo Meyer Esquerré, co-owner of wine and cheese bar Provisions. “Spanish tapas has changed how people eat, so we’re much more used to small, sharing plates, which is giving new life to cheese.”

Located on Holloway Road in North London, Provisions is a shop and 25-cover restaurant that specialises in wine and cheese. Customers can buy a bottle and a few wedges to take away, but can also sit in and have a cheeseboard (three for £10; five for £15) with matching wines. Set up three years ago, the company imports wines and raw milk cheeses from small producers in At North London’s Provisions, owner Hugo Meyer Esquerré says tapas-style sharing plates are breathing new life into cheese

France and Italy with a choice of 100 cheeses, from Crottin de Chavignol and mozzarella to Cantal and Vacherin.

“We find people come to us before they go out for dinner or pop in on the way back,” says Meyer Esquerré. “Younger people eat out more and have a lot more curiosity about their food.

Instead of supermarkets and chain restaurants, they want to go to independent, local places with food that is well made and not full of preservatives.”

Cheesy Tiger on Margate’s Harbour Arm has a menu entirely dedicated to dishes made with cheese from suppliers such as Paxton & Whitfield and Mons. There’s burrata with Amalfi lemon & pea shoots, deep-fried cauliflower & Montgomery’s cheddar, and whole baked Tunworth with rosemary & garlic roast potatoes.

“Cheese is part of a general trend towards

small producers and to step away from mass produced food,” says owner Tom Cawte.

“Natural wine is another example, and craft beer. It’s about small things done nicely. With the internet and Instagram, it’s easy to reach out to millions of people who are thinking along the same lines.”

Cawte says most diners don’t actually know the specific cheeses on the menu but his staff are happy to explain. “People trust us and we have a good enough reputation that they’ll come and try new things,” he says.

Knowledge and provenance are also at the heart of a new wine and cheese shop-cumrestaurant that opened in Bath in October. The Beckford Bottle Shop stocks more than 250 wines to buy or to drink in with British cheese and charcuterie, plus small plates. Highlights from the deli counter, which are sliced to order, include Westcombe cheddar, Sinodun Hill goats’ cheese and the fudgey blue Harbourne.

“We’ve gone for approachable cheeses, but also a few things that are more out there,” says general manager Casey Ryder. “It’s a relaxed, informal space, that’s about sociable eating.”

The first Beckford Bottle Shop was set up in Tisbury, Wiltshire, in 2015 as a spin-off from a country pub group that includes the Beckford Arms. In the lead-up to opening the new restaurant, staff have visited vineyards across Europe and taken cheese and charcuterie courses. That knowledge will also be used to roll out better cheese and charcuterie boards across the pubs in the near future.

“The whole nature of eating out is not so regimented any more,” says head chef Harry Russell. “Although we do a lunch and dinner service at the Bottle Shop, we also do breakfast or can serve a cheeseboard in the afternoon.

People want a nibble and few glasses, but that might well turn into a full meal.”

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Complementary coffee It’s the classic finale to a great dinner, but how much thought goes into the coffee served with that artfully assembled cheeseboard? We asked Dark Woods coffee guru DAMIAN BLACKBURN and champion cheesemonger ANDY SWINSCOE to find eight great cheese and coffee combos to wrap up a meal in style.

Coffee: Grumpy Mule Organic Sumatra Gayo Highlands Served as: French press Cheese match: Dorstone “The clean freshness of a light lactic goats’ cheese like Dorstone, made by Charlie Westhead at Neal’s Yard Creamery in Herefordshire, both cut through and lifted the herbal and cocoa notes of this bold coffee. They paired really nicely.”

Coffee: Taylors of Harrogate Rich Italian Served as: French press Cheese match: Parmigiano Reggiano “This classic, deeply flavoured coffee worked OK with quite a few different cheeses, but we couldn’t find anything we were truly happy about until we tried the old classic of Parmesan. And that just worked. Little nuggets of crumbled Parmesan, with its big flavours, just stood up and excelled with the coffee.”

Coffee: Union Hand-Roasted Brazil Bobolink Served as: French press Cheese match: Lincolnshire Poacher “The waxy, chewiness of Lincolnshire Poacher, coupled with it’s sharp tang and rounded sweetness paired well with the fresh, nutty and milk chocolate notes of the coffee and its gentle, fruity aftertaste.”

EIGHT COFFEE & CHEESE MATCHES FOR YOU TO TRY 34

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Coffee: Dark Woods Snow Stone Winter Blend Served as: Espresso Cheese match: Sparkenhoe Red Leicester “This coffee matched really well with an intense cheese, so we went for Sparkenhoe vintage Red Leicester. The full-flavoured sharp/sweetness of the cheese really stood up to this big coffee with its up-front chocolate notes and fruit-filled finish.”

Tasting session

IT’S A LATE AUTUMN AFTERNOON in Yorkshire, and one of Britain’s best cheesemongers, Andy Swinscoe of The Courtyard Diary, has just made a 55-mile trek from his shop near Settle to Holme Mill near Huddersfield, home of artisan roaster Dark Wood Coffee.

Armed with a coolbox full of cheese, Andy is hooking up with Dark Woods founder Damian Blackburn and his coffee-savvy partners Paul Meikle-Janney and Ian Agnew on a mission set by Good Cheese: to find eight brews of different styles that will partner well with some cheeseboard classics.

It’s a less obvious pairing than beer, cider or wine - but why? After all, coffee comes out just after the cheeseboard on thousands of dining tables every night of the year.

One of the country’s finest new small-batch coffee producers, Dark Woods took over the 150-year-old Holme Mill on the Huddersfield Narrow Canal in 2014. It installed a 1950s-vintage German drum roaster, and within two years had won a Great Taste Golden Fork for its Under Milk Wood espresso.

Now, the former woollen mill also houses several other artisan food businesses as well as an industrial-chic café and events

Coffee: Dark Woods Common Grounds Barrel Aged Served as: Filter Cheese match: Gorgonzola Dolce “We initially thought a hard, earthy cheddar style would work, but it really didn’t bring out the best of the coffee. After experimenting with the range, we found the sweet, soft creaminess along with the winey booziness you get from a good soft Gorgonzola just brought out the dried fruits and alcoholic whisky notes in the coffee, which was made with a filter. We chose Arrigoni’s Gorgonzola Dolce, which has won several Super Golds at the World Cheese Awards.”

TEAM (l-r): Paul Meikle-Janney (Dark Woods), Andy Swinscoe (The Courtyard Dairy), Damian Blackburn (Dark Woods) and Ian Agnew (Dark Woods)

space – just perfect for a cheese and coffee tasting session.

Andy Swinscoe is a former World Cheese Awards ‘Cheesemonger of the Year’ and also a rising star among affineurs, maturing cheeses to perfection both for this own shop and for trade clients around the country.

Well-versed in running tasting events – including at his own café and ‘cheese museum’ at The Courtyard Dairy – he tells Good Cheese: “I’ve tried matching coffee

and cheese before and found that the bitterness often works with cheeses like Parmesan quite well.”

But he adds: “I’m always dubious about trying to crow-bar matches in for the sake of it.”

So what will he make of the line-up selected by Damian Blackburn? They include four of Dark Woods’ own roasts, along with a Brazilian Bobolink, two coffees from Grumpy Mule (which Damian ran for several years) and the more everyday Rich Italian

Coffee: Dark Woods Under Milk Wood Served as: Latte Cheese match: Killeen ”Serving Under Milk Wood as a latte meant the creamy caramel notes of the coffee were accentuated with the sweet creaminess of the milk. We found that paired extremely well with the caramel, sweet milkiness you get in a gouda-style goats’ cheese.

We chose Killeen, made by farmer Marion Roeleveld in Co Galway.”

Coffee: Grumpy Mule Organic Ethiopia Shakisso Served as: Filter Cheese match: Tunworth “This was the surprise one and – along with the Common Grounds and Gorgonzola – one of our favourites. Andy thought we’d really struggle to match any coffee with soft creamy cheese, particularly one with big bold flavours like a good camembert. But the floral, bergamot notes of these superb beans – when served as a more delicate, sweet filter coffee – sat brilliantly alongside the vegetal, punchiness of the Tunworth.”

from Taylors of Harrogate.

“I’ve tried to cover a spectrum of coffee flavour styles and roast levels,” Damian explains, “plus we’ll also mix up the brewing method a little because, at the end of a meal, people might be using a French press [cafetière], a filter for more delicate flavours or an espresso-maker for something thicker and bigger-bodied.”

Armed with plenty of palatecleansing bread from nearby Roger’s Bakery (another Great Taste award winner) the tasting gets underway, with Andy’s initial boxful of 14 possible cheeses gradually reduced the eight you can see matched here.

“It took us a little while to get going, and a lot of our initial thoughts on paper didn’t work,” admits Andy. “But through playing about, sipping lots of coffee and eating lots of cheese some nice matches started to open up, and made for some interesting talking points.”

Which is exactly what you want from a tasting. So if you’re as addicted to coffee as you are to cheese, why not give these pairings a try – or even set up a tasting with your own local roaster and a selection of regional cheeses? darkwoodscoffee.co.uk thecourtyarddairy.co.uk rogersbakery.com

Coffee: Dark Woods Panama La Huella ‘Café de Panama’ Natural Served as: Filter Cheese match: Stichelton ”The cherry/cranberry-like fruitiness of this coffee, served from a filter machine, matched incredibly well to a balanced blue.

Any smooth creamy Stilton would work, but we particularly loved the way it matched with Stichelton.”

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Cheese science

IF THERE’S ONE SCIENTIFIC MONIKER that any serious cheese lover might know, it’s Penicillium roqueforti: the mould that makes blue cheese blue.

While it was named after the revered sheep’s milk cheese from Roquefort in southern France, Penicillium roqueforti is found all over the world. It’s the same mould that grows in Italy’s Gorgonzola, Spain’s Cabrales and Poland’s Rokpol, as well as Stilton and Cashel Blue.

But as delegates at this year’s Science of Artisan Cheese conference in Somerset heard, a new study of Penicillium roqueforti by the University of Nottingham’s Dr Paul Dyer suggests the classic blue cheese mould could be encouraged to evolve – with potential to deliver new and unique flavours.

Dyer and his colleagues have formed a new company that aims eventually to offer cheesemakers a ‘natural’ range of new and unique strains of this well-known cheese mould, offering cheese producers a new palette of flavours.

The Nottingham study is just one example of how scientists are rethinking the way microbes could be used in tomorrow’s cheesemaking.

Today, bought-in cultures are almost universal ingredients in commercial cheeses – from straightforward blends used simply to sour milk to more sophisticated so-called ‘adjunct cultures’ like Lactobacillus helveticus, which delivers the sweet flavour popular in so many modern-style cheddars.

But it was not always so. The first cultures designed to sour milk were only commercialised in the last decade of the nineteenth century, and they took many more years to be widely accepted by cheesemakers.

Today, commercial cultures help deliver consistency and reliability, but relying on them entirely to give cheeses their character is a practice hotly debated within cheese circles.

At the Somerset conference – co-

Commercial cultures help deliver consistency and reliability, but relying on them entirely to give cheeses their character is a practice hotly debated in cheese circles

sponsored by the Specialist Cheesemakers Association and Neal’s Yard Dairy – French scientists Dr Bruno Martin and Dr Isabelle Verdier-Metz presented their own research, aimed at better understanding how microbes are transferred from the farm environment, to the milk and to the cheese. Cheesemakers might soon use these principles to optimise the microbial communities in their raw milk to enhance the uniqueness of their cheeses.

The French scientists demonstrated that the skin of a cow’s teats hosted a wide variety of bacteria, many of which could play an important role in cheese-making. Over 80% of the species present in the milk, and almost 30% of those found in the cheese, were also found on the cows’ teats, suggesting this is a key source of raw-milk and cheese microbial diversity.

Artisan cheesemakers in Australia have their own challenges to overcome, with strict laws governing the use of raw milk for cheese.

Here, a team led by Dr Ian Powell of Swinburne University of Technology found a way to isolate microbes from raw milk that might contribute special characteristics to artisan cheeses, and then reintroduced them to the milk after pasteurisation.

Touted as a potential approach to avoiding

some of the risks of using raw milk, this technique has several drawbacks. For one thing, it’s very expensive: certainly far beyond the budget of a farmhouse cheesemaker.

But another drawback was raised at the conference. Adding a cocktail of isolated cultures is a vast simplification compared to the natural microbial diversity of raw milk, which varies throughout the year and shapes a raw milk cheese’s flavours across a season.

So, while the Australian technique might make a greater diversity of approved flavourproducing cultures available to producers working under tough regulations, it’s far from an equivalent to making a true raw milk cheese.

Producing unique and interesting milk is arguably the most important step in cheesemaking. This year’s conference, staged at the family farm in North Cadbury where Montgomery’s cheddar is made, didn’t just focus on cheese. More than ever before, it considered the power of farming practices to influence the character of the milk and cheese, not to mention the health and well-being of the animals – for example, through reduced antibiotic usage.

A common theme arose: that longabandoned practices are a repository for ideas that — when properly understood through modern science — can lead us towards the innovations of the future.

From understanding the benefits of biodiverse and extensive farming, to farming in a way that reduces the need for antibiotics and antimicrobials, to enhancing the native microbial diversity of carefully-produced raw materials to create cheeses with a unique richness of flavour: these ‘new-old’ ideas have tremendous potential to reshape the conversation around — and our understanding of — great farmhouse and artisan cheeses.

• Bronwen Percival is cheese buyer for Neal’s Yard Dairy and a member of the Specialist Cheesemakers Association technical committee.

Shades of blue

The hyphae and spores of Penicillium roqueforti: microscopic marvel behind everything from Roquefort to Cashel Blue

GOOD CHEESE 2018-19

Penicillium image: Visuals Unlimited/Nature Picture Library

It’s nature’s way of making Roquefort and Stilton blue. But as BRONWEN PERCIVAL reports from the UK’s annual gathering of artisan cheese boffins, science could soon be nudging Penicillium roqueforti to create a whole new palette of flavours.

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Try your hand at some DIY GOOD CHEESE 2018-19

With DIY kits readily available in shops and online, home cheesemaking should be child’s play – especially for an expert from the Academy of Cheese. We challenged Academy director TRACEY COLLEY to put six popular kits through their paces.

Home cheesemaking

TRACEY’S TEST KITS

I’VE WATCHED CHEESEMAKING many times in my cheese career. I’ve done a little cheddaring, I’ve salted curds and I’ve clothbound cheddar truckles.

But when Good Cheese asked me to check out a variety of DIY kits at home I was immediately back at age seven, when Mum and Dad thought I was going to be the scientist in the family (I am number three of four girls) and bought me a chemistry set for Christmas.

I desperately wanted the Post Office set with the toy money, rubber stamp and perforated postage stamps.

So opening the first cheesemaking kit and discovering the pipette and calcium chloride inside did make me hesitate. However, with an encouraging dig in the ribs from my husband I began my cheesemaking journey.

Up until now, playing around in other people’s cheese dairies, I’ve never been responsible for heating the milk or adding the cultures and rennet. These all require precise measuring and no distractions. So... social media alerts turned off! Then I progressed nicely.

The YouTube videos supporting some of the kits were a help, and the recipe booklets

with pictograms most useful. All the kits required extra kitchen equipment – a stove, pans, metal slotted spoon, measuring jug, bowls, a long kitchen knife, teaspoons – which of course equals heaps of washing up.

As in any kitchen, hygiene and cleanliness is essential. One kit provided steriliser but I didn’t find this necessary as it was only going to be me eating the results.

The other essential ingredient is the milk, and lots of it. Whole milk is used for the majority of recipes, pasteurised but definitely not UHT. I’ve tried out six kits for you, and all in all the experience was better than I’d anticipated, although patience and practice is definitely required.

It makes me appreciate even more what our fabulous artisan cheesemakers go through every day – and I now understand why they love their automated dishwashers so much!

• Tracey Colley is operations director of the Academy of Cheese. Set up to widen knowledge about cheese among professionals and the general public, the Academy offers four stages of qualificaton to meet all levels of interest. academyofcheese.org

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GOOD CHEESE 2018-19

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CELEBRATING 40 YEARS AS DEVON’S BEST ‘PRESERVED’ SECRET

HAVE YOU TRIED THE BEST CHEESE IN THE WORLD? ‘Buttery with caramel notes and an amazing age and complexity’ Cornish Kern -Supreme Champion World Cheese Awards 2017 Made by hand and matured for 16 months in Cornwall at Lynher Dairies, makers of the iconic leaf-wrapped Yarg Available in delis, cheese shops and speciality food stores.

lynherdairies.co.uk

@lynherdairies

Award-winning, gluten-free chutneys, savoury jellies, sauces, pickles, mustards and preserves, hand-made in Devon in our SALSA-approved kitchen.

CONTACT US TO DISCUSS YOUR CATERING & RETAIL REQUIREMENTS: INFO@OTTER-VALE.CO.UK 01884 35000 WWW.OTTER-VALE.CO.UK

Handcrafted with skill and passion for over 100 years.

___ Å^MUQTM\W_VKPMM[M KWU

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GOOD CHEESE 2018-19

Home cheesemaking

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DIY KIT TEST: THE RESULTS The Big Cheese - The Ultimate Cheese Making Kit – £34.95 bigcheesemakingkit.com

In the box: Citric acid, organic sea salt, rennet tablets, large thermometer, muslin cheese cloth, 3 moulds, 5 sachets of herbs/spices, spiral bound instruction/recipe booklet to make 10 different cheeses.

Mad Millie Italian Cheese Kit – £18.99

Verdict: This kit has been created with eye-catching appeal and design. The citric acid and organic sea salt are in resealable brightly coloured pouches; the 50 page instruction/recipe book is spiral bound and wipeable. There is a mix of illustrations, photos and step-by-step written instructions for each cheese interspursed with finished cheese recipe ideas. Lots of tips along the way too.

lakeland.co.uk

Sandy Leaf Farm Beginners’ Cheese Making Kit – £7.99 sandyleaffarm.com

In the box: Steriliser, citric acid, calcium chloride, 1:1048576 tablets, salt, muslin cloth, pipette, large thermometer, ricotta mould, instructions/recipe booklet to make 5 different cheeses.

In the box: Citric acid, salt, 2 x rennet sachets, blue cheese cloth, mould, instruction/recipe leaflet to make 5 different soft cheeses.

Verdict: This kit is very basic which is reflected in the price. There is no thermometer, but the instruction leaflet is clear and concise. There is also a help centre with FAQs on their website.

Verdict: It was useful to watch their YouTube video before starting. The booklet has good clear instructions and handy tips. There are pictures to depict the steps to make mozzarella but only photos of the finished product for other cheeses. The large thermometer is easy to read and clips to the side of the saucepan. Pipette is useful for small liquid measures. Uses a mix of measures (eg cup/ml/l) so I had to look up size of a cup. Provides calcium chloride to restore vital calcium content to pasteurised milk.

Cheese Monkey Kit No 6 BIG – £18.99 cheesemonkey.co.uk

In the box: Citric acid, salt, rennet tablets, small thermometer, blue cheese cloth, mould, 2 sachets of herbs, instruction/recipe booklet to make 20 different cheeses.

Verdict: The kit looks basic from the outside. However, it has all the essential elements and the 44 page booklet takes you through how to make 20 different soft cheeses from ricotta to halloumi. The small thermometer is a little tricky to read. There are no diagrams in the booklet, but there are some good photographs of the finished product and the step-bystep instructions are comprehensive.

Paxton & Whitfield Cheese Making Kit – £25 paxtonandwhitfield.co.uk

In the box: Citric acid, salt, 2 x rennet tablets, small thermometer, blue cheese cloth, mould, instruction/ recipe leaflet to make 5 different soft cheeses.

Verdict: This kit from the legendary cheesemongers Paxton & Whitfield has everything you need to make soft cheese. The small thermometer is a little tricky to read, but the instruction leaflet is clear and succinct, with step-by-step instructions (no photographs or diagrams).

Mad Millie Hard Cheese Kit – £79.99 lakeland.co.uk

In the box: Steriliser, starter culture, calcium chloride, rennet tablets, salt, annatto, muslin cloth, pipette, large thermometer, measuring spoons, large mould, cheese mat, cheese press, bowl, wax, instruction/recipe booklet to make 7 different hard cheeses.

Verdict: This kit supplies everything you need apart from the patience to leave your creation for a minimum of 5 weeks to mature before getting to taste it. As with their Italian Cheese Kit, the booklet has good step-by-step instructions and signposts to YouTube videos, but there are no step-by-step illustrations (only on the box). The cheese press provided and the wax to coat your creation while it matures really differentiates this kit from the others.

It’s one for the serious cheese lover as all recipes take approx 5 hours plus 4-16 maturing weeks. I loved the quirky measuring spoons labelled ‘tad’, ‘dash’, ‘drop’, ‘smidgen’, etc!

GOOD CHEESE 2018-19

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Savoury Biscuits are our Speciality Our Water Biscuits and Oatcakes are made to traditional recipes that have been passed down for generations.

This has allowed us to keep refining them so that they are a worthy carrier for a wide variety of cheeses.

Awarded original Swiss Cheese since five generations presented

by Affineur Walo von Mühlenen.

For more on our savoury biscuits range, get in touch: Tel: 01851 702733 www.stagbakeries.co.uk sales@stagbakeries.co.uk

Exclusively distributed in the UK by The Fine Cheese Co. www.finecheese.co.uk 01225 424212

The perfect accompaniment for cheese

Fruitfor Cake Fruit Rich cake cheese Orange Fig and Chocolate Fruitcake

Award-winning artisan handmade fruit cakes baked in wood using only the best quality ingredients

HANDMADE MOUTH WATERING PRESERVES

www.waterhousefayre.co.uk 01978 660371

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· robert@orchardpigs.co.uk · www.orchardpigs.co.uk

GOOD CHEESE 2018-19

See our website for stockists

Cheese accompaniments

Partners in crime Every good cheese selection needs an accompaniment to serve it with. From crackers to kraut, we’ve got you covered with this selection by AJ SHARP.

Myrtle’s Kitchen is known for unusual and diverse flavour combinations and its new banana & rum chutney is no exception. Packed with bananas and lightly spiced with ginger to complement the rum, this chutney is ideal with salty cheeses like feta. myrtleskitchen.co.uk

Fans of Devon’s Otter Vale can buy limited-edition selection boxes contain six of its best-selling preserves, made mostly with local produce and ideal to pair with any cheese. otter-vale.co.uk

Irish Black Butter is a dairy-free preserve that draws on the rich heritage of Armagh Bramley Apples; an EU Protected Food Name variety. The dark, rich spread is made with cider, brandy, treacle and a blend of spices and will work well with cheeses such as brie, camembert or extra mature cheddar. irishblackbutter.com Pear & walnut is the newest creation from Cranbrook Conserves. It’s a typical Kentish handmade farmhouse chutney, described as the ideal accompaniment for cheese where the “sweetness of the pear and the crunch of the walnut contrasts superbly”. cranbrookconserves.co.uk

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Due to a glut of home-grown plums, Twee this year launched a spicy plum chutney. Made with Victoria plums paired with chilli, ginger, cayenne and paprika, it’s described as “sweet but spicy, pairing perfectly with blue cheese”. tweelife.co.uk

The Quirky Cook’s honeyed fig relish with black garlic is the latest creation in founder Kay Hawkins’ pioneering range of black garlic relishes. Winner of a 2018 Great Taste Golden Fork, this Great Taste threestar-winning relish balances the delicate sweetness of honey and figs with the earthy savoury notes of black garlic. thequirkycook.co.uk GOOD CHEESE 2018-19

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Cheese accompaniments

The Lismore Food Company picked up a two-star award for its Irish digestive with wild Atlantic sea salt and a 3-star for its caraway biscuit with Irish seaweed at this year’s Great Taste. Judges were bowled over by the latter’s “wonderful texture” and “expertly balanced flavours”. Ideal with a soft cheese and glass of chilled white wine. thelismorefoodcompany. com

One of the few British-based crackers to use sprouted grain flour, Sprouted Genius’s products are full of nutrients that are easier to digest and absorb. The crackers come in three flavours: amaranth, amaranth with beetroot, and purple corn with sea salt & black pepper. sproutedgenius. com

The Sticky Pickle Company produces small batch pickles and chutneys using local ingredients where possible. Its pickled red cabbage is infused with juniper and chilli, while the pickled beetroot variety is crunchy with flavours of ginger and cumin. stickypickleco.co.uk Eat Live picked up a Great Taste one-star this year for its raw cucumber & mint kraut. Raw and unpasteurised, the sauerkraut is made with white cabbage, cucumber, fresh mint and a splash of raw apple cider vinegar. Crunchy and tangy, it’s said to match particularly well with the creamy smoothness of goats’ milk and soft cheeses. eatlive.co.uk

Dorset-based Ajar Of has two chutneys ideal as an accompaniment for most cheeses. Its Chutters for Cheese is a deep, dark sticky chutney with figs that complements most hard cheeses. The spiced beetroot & orange chutney, earthy and sweet with a warmth coming from the addition of ginger, is recommended with a good goats’ cheese, brie or camembert. RRP £3.10. ajar-of.co.uk 44

GOOD CHEESE 2018-19

Veg Co’s new sweet chilli jam is a strong contender to appear on any cheeseboard. Made by hand using high-quality and “renewably grown” tomatoes and chillies, the jam is said to be deliciously sticky with a distinctive chilli heat. vegco.uk

The Garden Pantry’s damson & port jelly is made using homegrown and locally-sourced damsons steeped in Black Shuck’s port. The high fruit content creates a jelly which is described as “intense and lingering”. The Norfolk-based producer recommends trying it with hard cheeses, brie or baked camembert. thegardenpantry.co.uk

Handmade using British pulse flours, Easy Bean’s new Bean & Seed crackers are a colourful addition to any cheeseboard, with their tricolour of soft shades of red, green and white. The wholegrain, earthy flavours with a hint of sweetness marry well with British hard cheese such as crumbly Cheshire, robust mature cheddar or a creamy Stilton. easybean.co.uk

Cheese was made for Chutney...

hawksheadrelish.com

“ The best biscuit for cheese out there” Great Taste Award judges 2015

GOOD CHEESE 2018-19

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)RU PRUH GHWDLOV RI DOO 6FKRRO RI )LQH )RRG SURJUDPPHV FRXUVHV IHHV DQG GDWHV YLVLW gff.co.uk/training RU FRQWDFW jilly.sitch@gff.co.uk, +44 (0)1747 825200

www.gff.co.uk | academyofcheese.org |

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Handmade Artisan Cheese from the Heart of Teesdale

Our cheese is made with high quality creamy milk from the family’s dairy farm in Teesdale. It’s been in the family for four generations so we know the milk is good. allison@teesdalecheesemakers.co.uk / 01833 627732

AWARD WINNING AMERICAN STYLE APA Abdominal Stoneman is a 7% American style pale ale. Brewed using English malts and three American hops this is a beast of a brew loved by the Great Taste Judges.

Call or email and speak to Viv about our other amazing beers or to place an order.

STONE BREWED SINCE 2008 Lymestone Brewery, The Old Brewery, Mount Rd, Stone, Staffs ST15 8LL 01785 817796 mrsbrad@btconnect.com

www.lymestonebrewery.co.uk

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Great British Cheese Awards 2016 Winner: Best Artisan Cheese Producer Great Taste 2017 3-Star award-winner · Great Taste 2018 2 star Great Taste award winner

The last farm made UDZ PLON /DQFDVKLUH &KŸVH At Mrs Kirkham’s we have been making our award-winning Lancashire for 3 generations, using the same techniques and ingredients as the generations before.

We use only the rich creamy milk from our own closed herd of Holstien Frieisan Cows, to create what we believe to be a true traditional Lancashire, which is an ivory yellow in colour and has a rich buttery crumble.

www.mrskirkhamscheese.co.uk info@mrskirkhamscheese.co.uk · 01772 865335

COTSWOLD

ORGANIC

Fine Italian Foods F L A V O U R S O F I T A L Y

Tel 01451 870852 cheese@turnstonefarming.co.uk

www.simonweaver.net

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GOOD CHEESE 2018-19

T E W

+44 (0)20 8671 6622 enquiries@fineitalianfoods.co.uk www.fineitalianfoods.co.uk

Directory of retailers

Where to buy good cheese IRELAND The Little Cheese Shop Greys Lane Dingle Co. Kerry Ireland +353 87 625 5788

LONDON & SOUTH EAST Rippon Cheese Stores 26 Upper Tatchbrook Street Pimlico London SW1V 1SW 020 7931 0628 ripponcheeselondon.com Hamish Johnston Limited 48 Northcote Road Battersea London SW11 1PA 0207 738 0741 hamishjohnston.com La Fromagerie 2-6 Moxon Street Marylebone London W1U 4EW 0207 935 0341 lafromagerie.co.uk

La Fromagerie 30 Highbury Park Highbury London N5 2AA 020 7359 7440 lafromagerie.co.uk La Fromagerie 52 Lamb’s Conduit Street Bloomsbury London WC1N 3LL 020 7242 1044 lafromagerie.co.uk Cowdray Farm Shop Ltd. Cowdray Park Midhurst West Sussex GU29 0AJ 01730 815152 cowdrayfarmshop.co.uk The De Beauvoir Deli Company 98 Southgate Road London N1 3JD 020 7249 4321 thedebeauvoirdeli.co.uk The Deli Downstairs 211 Victoria Park Road London E9 7JN 020 8533 5006 thedelidownstairs.co.uk

The Grumpy Goat 8 Harris Arcade Friar Street Reading Berkshire RG1 1DN 01189 581765 thegrumpygoat.co.uk

Cut & Cured Unit 11 The Long Shop Merton Abbey Mills Watermill Way London SW19 2RD 020 8540 1939 cutandcured.co.uk

Macknade Fine Foods Selling Road Faversham Kent ME13 8XF 01795 534497 macknade.com

The Deli at No 5 5 Buttermarket Thame Oxfordshire OX9 3EW 01844 214229 thedeliatno5.co.uk

Partisan Cheesemonger & Deli 14a Chapel Street Guildford Hampshire GU1 3UL 01483 567998 partisan-deli.co.uk

Ralph’s Wine Cellar & Delicatessen 78 High Street Whitton Twickenham Surrey TW2 7LS 0208 8940510 ralphswinecellar.com

The Fleetville Larder 129 Hatfield Road St Albans Hertfordshire AL1 4JS 01727 863237 fleetvillelarder.com

Middle Farm Shop West Firle Lewes East Sussex BN8 6LJ 01323 811411 middlefarm.com

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Winslade made by Hampshire Cheeses, producers of Tunworth, is a small, soft and unctuous cheese with a floral earthiness.

sarah@sharpham.com 01803732600 Champion Produce from Devon Contact us for distributors in your area or to be a new distributor.

Champion Produce from Devon

SUPREME CHAMPION 2017

Contact us for distributors in your area or to be a new distributor

www.hampshirecheeses.co.uk

| sarah@sharpham.com www.sharpham.com

01803 732600

info@hampshirecheeses.com

TRA MAT EX

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Begin with Perfection

Reserve Champion, British Cheese Awards 2018

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GOOD CHEESE 2018-19

BE S

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WCA TROPHY WINNERS 2015-16 2016-17 2017-18

E D DA R

Ballylisk of Armagh award winning single herd artisan cows milk cheeses from Co.Armagh, Northern Ireland Best New Food/Drink product Balmoral Show NI 2018 Artisan Producer of the Year 2018 NI Farming Life

Call or email Mark Wright today info@ballyliskofarmagh.com 07801029166 / 02838330044 www.ballyliskofarmagh.com

Directory of retailers

Cheeses of Muswell Hill 13 Fortis Green Road Muswell Hill London N10 3HP 0208 444 9141 cheesesonline.co.uk Halsey’s Deli & Eatery 10-11 Market Place Hitchin Hertfordshire SG5 1DR 01462 432023 halseysdeli.co.uk Abondance Old Spitalfields Market 10a Lamb Street London E1 6EA 020 7247 7437 abondance.co.uk Jeroboams 96 Holland Park Avenue London W11 3RB 020 7727 9359 jeroboams.co.uk The Larder Deli 71 Ladywell Road London SE13 7JA 020 8314 5797 www.thelarderdeli.com The Pangbourne Cheese Shop 17 Reading Road Pangbourne Reading RG8 7LU 0118 984 3323 cheese-etc.co.uk The Fine Cheese Co. 17 Motcomb St Belgravia London SW1X 8LB 020 7536 2109 finecheese.co.uk

Aubrey Allen Ltd. 108 Warwick Street Leamington Spa Coventry Warwickshire CV32 4QP 02476 421666 fromagetoage.co.uk H . Gunton Limited 81-83 Crouch Street Colchester Essex CO3 3EZ 01206 572200 guntons.co.uk The Cheese Shop Nottingham Ltd 4 Flying Horse Walk St Peters Gate Nottingham Nottinghamshire NG1 2HN 0115 941 9114 cheeseshop-nottingham.co.uk Delilah Fine Foods 12 Victoria Street Nottingham Nottinghamshire NG1 2EX 0115 948 4461 delilahfinefoods.co.uk Taste Of The Country 2-4 Market Place Shipston on Stour Warwickshire CV36 4AG 01608 665064 tasteofthecountry.co.uk Slate 138 High Street Aldeburgh Suffolk IP15 5AQ 01728 454052 slatecheese.co.uk

MIDLANDS & EAST ANGLIA

Slate No. 6 Victoria Street Southwold Suffolk IP18 6HZ 01502 724318 slatecheese.co.uk

The Melton Cheeseboard 8 Windsor Street Melton Mowbray Leicestershire LE13 1BU 01664 562257 meltoncheeseboard.co.uk

The Cheese Society 1 St Martin’s Lane Lincoln Lincolnshire LN2 1HY 01522 511003 thecheesesociety.co.uk

Cheese on the Green 27 The Green Bilton Rugby Warwickshire CV22 7LZ 01788 522813 cheeseonthegreen.com

N. IRELAND Four Seasons Cherry Valley Ltd 38-40 Gilnahirk Road Cherryvalley Belfast County Antrim BT5 7DG 01565 751697 thefourseasonsni.co.uk

NORTH OF ENGLAND Real Meals 25 Milton Street Saltburn Cleveland TS12 1DJ 01287 622266 real-meals.co.uk The Cheeseboard 1 Commercial Street Harrogate North Yorkshire HG1 1UB 01423 508837 thecheeseboard.net Henshelwoods Delicatessen 10 Newgate York North Yorkshire YO1 7LA 01904 673877 deliyork.co.uk Liverpool Cheese Company Ltd Sailsbury Dairy 29a Woolton Village Liverpool Lancashire L25 5NH 0151 428 3942 liverpoolcheesecompany.co.uk All Things Nice Deli, Cafe & Bakery 48-50 Market Street Marple Stockport Cheshire SK6 7AD 0161 427 2222 allthingsnicedeli.co.uk

Apley Farm Shop Norton Shifnal Shropshire TF11 9EF 01952 581002 apleyfarmshop.co.uk The Cheese Yard 69 King Street Knutsford Cheshire WA16 6DX 01565 751697 cheeseyard.co.uk The Lambing Shed Moseley Hall Farm Chelford Road Knutsford Cheshire WA16 8RB 01565 631027 thelambingshed.com Mousetrap Cheese 3 School Lane Leominster Herefordshire HR6 8AA 01568 615512 mousetrapcheese.co.uk Mousetrap Cheese 6 Church Street Ludlow Shropshire SY8 1AP 01584 879556 mousetrapcheese.co.uk Mousetrap Cheese 30 Church Street Hereford Herefordshire HR1 2LR 01432 353423 mousetrapcheese.co.uk Tully’s of Rothbury High Street Rothbury Northumberland NE65 7TB 01669 620574 rothburydeli.co.uk Fodder The Great Yorkshire Showground Harrogate North Yorkshire HG2 8NZ 01423 544544 fodder.co.uk

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home of award winning Kentish cheeses including the award winning Chaucers Camembert.

Family Farming on the Isle of Wight

Now making THREE new sheep cheeses!

All our cheeses are available at Shed in Canterbury, or through the cheesemakersofcanterbury.co.uk website, as well as through our wholesalers. signature cheese Ashmore Farmhouse, Bowyers Brie and of course the award winning Chaucers Camembert.

DOUBLE CREAM

SEMI SKIMMED

WHOLE MILK

MILK

CHEDDAR CHEESE

HALLOUMI STYLE CHEESE

For more information about our range of award winning dairy products please contact: orders@briddlesford.co.uk or call us on: 01983 632136 Follow us on Twitter

and Facebook

www.briddlesford.co.uk

PRODUCED IN

KENT

Why not visit our NEW 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 history of Ashmore Cheese.

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

#AWS_4EIs_#HEESE is the most highly awarded RAW milk cheese in Britain. Its flagship CELTIC PROMISE was 3UPREME_#HAMPION twice at 4HE_"RITISH_#HEESE_!WARDS in 1998 and 2005. It is a STAR_'REAT_4ASTE_!WARD and 'OLDEN_&ORK_WINNER for the "EST_7ELSH_&OOD_0RODUCT in 2018.

Do you stock this cheese? If not, perhaps you should! !LL_NEW_CUSTOMERS_WILL_RECEIVE_A_ _DISCOUNT_FOR_THEIR_sRST_ORDER WWW TEIsCHEESE CO UK Glynhynod Farm, Llandysul, Ceredigion SA44 5JY Tel. 01239 851528

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GOOD CHEESE 2018-19

Directory of retailers

Corbridge Larder 18 Hill Street Corbridge Northumberland NE45 5AA 01434 632948 corbridgelarder.co.uk Mollie Sharp’s Cheese Shop 15 Finkle Street Selby York North Yorkshire YO8 4DT 01757 428002 molliesharps.co.uk Godfrey C. Williams & Son Corner House 9-11 Market Square Sandbach Cheshire CW11 1AP 01270 762817 godfreycwilliams.co.uk Keelham Hall Farm Shop Brighouse & Denholme Road Thornton Bradford West Yorkshire BD13 3SS 01274 833472 keelhamfarmshop.co.uk The Cheese Hamlet 706 Wilmslow Road Didsbury Manchester Greater Manchester M20 2DW 0161 434 4781 cheesehamlet.co.uk Granthams of Alderley Edge 68 Heyes Lane Alderley Edge Cheshire SK9 7HY 01625 583286 granthamsfinefood.com George & Joseph Cheesemongers 140 Harrogate Road Chapel Allerton Leeds Yorkshire LS7 4NZ 0113 3450203 georgeandjoseph.co.uk

Gillions 128-130 College Road Crosby Liverpool Lancashire L23 3DP 0151 924 4057 gillionsofcrosby.co.uk

SCOTLAND George Mewes Cheese 3 Dean Park Street Stockbridge Edinburgh Mid Lothian EH4 1JN 0131 332 5900 georgemewescheese.co.uk The House of Bruar The Foodhall

By Blair Athol Pitlochry Perthshire PH18 5TW 01796 483 236 houseofbruar.comfood-hall/ The Mainstreet Trading Company Main Street St Boswells Melrose Borders TD6 0AT 01835 824 087 mainstreetbooks.co.uk

SOUTH WEST The Pear Tree Delicatessen Half Moon Street Sherborne Dorset DT9 3LN 01935 812828 peartreedeli.co.uk Applegarth Farm Headley Road Grayshott Hindhead Hampshire GU26 6JL 01428 712777 applegarthfarm.co.uk Emsworth Delicatessen 1A Central Buildings West Street Emsworth Hampshire PO10 7DU 01243 389181 emsworthdeli.co.uk

Food Fanatics 12 North Street Winchcombe Cheltenham Gloucestershire GL54 5LH 01242 604466 food-fanatics.co.uk

Cobbs Farm Co Bath Road Hungerford Berkshire RG17 0SP 01488 686770 cobbsfarmshop.co.uk

Relish Food & Drink Foundry Court Wadebridge Cornwall PL27 7QN 01208 814214 relishwadebridge.co.uk

Quickes Traditional Ltd. Home Farm Newton St Cyres Exeter Devon EX5 5AY 01392 851222 quickes.co.uk

Countryman’s Choice Farm Shop Cadleigh Park Ivybridge Devon PL21 9JL 01752 895533 countrymanschoice.co.uk

The Fine Cheese Co. 29 & 31 Walcot Street Bath North Somerset BA1 5BN 01225 473252 finecheese.co.uk

Lots of Lemons 8 Tarlings Yard Church Road Bishops Cleeves, Cheltenham Gloucestershire GL52 8RN 01242 674762 lotsoflemonsdeli.com Balulas Delicatessen Wood Street Swindon Wiltshire SN1 4AN 01793 643000 balulas.co.uk The Cheeseboard 64 High Street Sidmouth Devon EX10 8EH 01395 515560 cheeseboardsidmouth.com Tisbury Delicatessen Jubilee House High Street Tisbury Wiltshire SP3 6HA 01747 871771 tisburydeli.co.uk

WALES Great Oak Foods Ltd 14, Great Oak Street Llanidloes Llanidloes SY18 6BU 01686 413222 greatoakfoods.co.uk Ginhaus Deli Ltd 1 Market Street Llandeilo Carmarthenshire SA19 6AH 01558 823030 ginhaus.co.uk Porter’s Delicatessen Market Street Llangollen Denbighshire LL20 8PS 01978 862990 portersdeli.co.uk

Cheese on Coast 65 Fore Street St Ives Cornwall TR26 1HE 01736 793411 cheeseoncoast.co.uk

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Now appointed by Toshiba ;,* HZ HU VMÄJPHS YLZLSSLY MVY [OLPY (WSL_ WYPU[ HUK HWWS` Z`Z[LT *HSS [VKH` MVY OLSWM\S L_WLY[ HK]PJL VU JVZ[ LMMLJ[P]L THU\HS ZLTP HUK M\SS` H\[VTH[PJ SHILSSPUN Norpak Ltd, 3 Mitre Court, Cutler Heights Lane, Bradford. W. Yorks., BD4 9JY Tel: 01274 681022. Enquiries to info@norpakltd.com www.norpakltd.com

Harmoniously balance out the saltiness cheese offers with a moreish, delightful, burst of sweetness. Brie is perfectly paired with hilltop honey cut comb, oozing with pure and natural acacia honey.

the perfect pairing!

cut comb

Delicious little hexagonal shapes bursting with acacia honey. Great for gifting or perfect for adding luxury to canapes.

Available in a 340g jar and varying tray sizes. (200g/400g)

there’s more to honey.

give us a buzz!

01686 689027

info@hilltop-honey.com

join the buzz!

@hilltop_honey

www.hilltop-honey.com

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GOOD CHEESE 2018-19

THE

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TEL: 07894 229499

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Walkers Oatcakes, a delicious and versatile choice.

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