There are many fine Scottish cheeses I could have brought to you on Burns Night: Lanark or Dunsyre Blue, gorgeous cheeses sadly not currently in production; punchy cheddar types from the Isle of Mull or Barwhey’s; the stunning enigma of a cheese that is Paddy’s Milestone; or the bluest blue cheese ever seen, Hebridean Blue. Instead, dear reader, I’m bringing you a cheese from the time when Nordic men with big beards spelled trouble rather than the launch of a hipster hygge café.
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So, turns out that today is #CheeseLoversDay. Other than a hashtag, I’m not sure what this consists of but it did seem to mean I had to write something. Then I started to worry: if I post about a particular cheese, will all the other cheeses think that I love that cheese the most? Finally, I got a grip and decided to just write about the last cheese that I bought, on a recent foray to East Anglia.
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I’ve been cooking with a lot of cheeses recently but haven’t had much time to scout out new ones. So, when I saw that my veg box supplier had added a new cheese to its catalogue, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to sound it out.
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I once met someone who told me that his friend had written her dissertation about cheese names. It might sound a bit daft and perhaps the sort of thing that would trigger a spluttering Daily Mail article about the pointlessness of academia. But, actually, I think it sounds quite interesting. Cheese names can often tell an informative or evocative story. They can be geographical (Fosse Way Fleece, Parlick Fell), historical (Edmund Tew, Howard) or even linguistic (Norfolk Mardler, Mouth Almighty). I had heard about Yorkshire Fettle precisely because of how it came by its name but hadn’t managed to track any down, so was chuffed when Aldi sent me some to try as part of their new range:
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I planted a vine in the garden a couple of years ago, with the intention of joining our local wine co-operative (yes, there really is such a thing in Tooting). However, despite attempting to take over the entire street, it only ever produces about three bunches of pathetic, raisin-like grapes. The foliage though is lush, especially as the season starts to turn at this time of year, and I’ve had my eye on the leaves for some time.
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One of my favourite blogs is Mrs Portly’s Kitchen. If you haven’t come across it before, do check it out for a wealth of local, seasonal and also more exotic recipes. I do, however, have one criticism of its author, Linda, and that is her point-blank refusal to cook and write about Stargazy Pie. For those unfamiliar with the dish, it’s a Cornish speciality, renowned for the fact that the heads of the baked pilchards poke out through the pastry. You can see photos of it here, as well as read about the legend of heroic fisherman Tom Bawcock, who is said to have inspired the dish.
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Last weekend saw us on a camping trip, as ever featuring limited sleep, the ever-present threat of rain and the usual one in ten odds of vomiting (it wasn’t us this time). In amongst this unalloyed pleasure, we also got to enjoy the beauty of the New Forest. Grazing ponies (and some donks with a deathwish), scrub and furze and babbling brooks, perfect for paddling. Striking and scenic but not, at first glance, obvious cheese country. However, this week’s cheese hails from just up the road from our buffeted tent:
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This week’s cheese had a lot to live up to. I’d bought it once before at an agricultural show and then left it in my mother-in-law’s fridge before I’d even opened it. By all accounts they enjoyed eating it. When I managed to buy some more, on another visit to the West Country, it was the first thing I checked had gone into the cool box in the car.
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I find myself drawn to cheeses for different reasons: maybe because I want to try something from a new region; maybe because I just fancy a certain type of cheese; or sometimes for a random reason. In this case, I thought it had gorgeously striking packaging, so – boom – it was in the bag:
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I recently wrote about my conversion to cheese with bits in (not that ‘full turkey dinner’ stuff, though, I draw the line at that). Whereas I used to shy away from any cheese that had been ‘mucked about with’ (to quote one cheese professional I met), I am now willing to give such cheeses a try, having found such beauties as Posbury and Vulscombe. So it was that when I recently ordered some cheese, I added this one to the basket:
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Fromage Homage 