Source: https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20211110-the-uk-village-that-lost-its-cheese
Cheddar has conquered the world, but it wasn’t produced in its namesake English town for years. Now, an award-winning dairy is putting Cheddar, England back on the map.
tilton, Cheshire, red Leicester. There are more than 700 cheeses produced in the UK, but in parts of the English-speaking world, a certain type is so ubiquitous that it’s simply referred to as “cheese”. Cheddar is the most popular cheese in the UK, accounting for nearly half of all British cheese sales, and according to recent polls, it’s the favourite cheese among Americans and Aussies, and one of the most-eaten types in Canada, too. But while cheddar has become a dairy staple from Wisconsin to Wales, the fact that one of the world’s most-consumed cheeses has no protected designation of origin means that it’s also become one of the most mass-produced. These days, industrialised cheddar is churned out in more than a dozen countries and the plastic-packaged blocks bear little resemblance to their cave-matured predecessors.
But if you want to taste authentic cheddar cheese, the way it originally tasted, you need to visit the 5,400-person village of Cheddar in the county of Somerset in south-west England. Here, as far back as the late Middle Ages, cheesemakers used caves in the towering limestone cliffs of Cheddar Gorge as natural refrigerators.
Back then – and for centuries afterward – cheese would have been made in small individual dairies. But as a result of rationing during World War Two, most of the milk in Britain was used to make a single generic cheese dubbed “Government Cheddar“. This nearly wiped out local cheese production in Britain, slashing the number of farmhouse producers from more than 3,500 before World War One to barely 100 by the end of WW2, and, for years afterward, there was no-one making traditional cheddar in Cheddar.
That finally changed in 2003 when one local couple, Katherine and John Spencer, decided to revive the cheesemaking methods that had made the name of their village world famous. And now, their Cheddar-made cheddar is winning international awards.
“We spotted a gap in the market for a traditional Cheddar made where it all began,” Katherine explained from the small office adjacent to the couples’ Cheddar Gorge Cheese Company dairy. “Our aim was to perfect a quality handmade cheese, using raw milk from one farm that was more akin to the cheese that would have been made here hundreds of years ago than the mass-produced blocks we tend to associate with cheddar today.”
Although the couple had a background in the cheese industry (Katherine had worked as a continental cheese importer and John in supermarket supply), this was a new direction. With three experienced cheesemakers working for them, they began researching local and historical cheese recipes. Over a six-year period, they perfected their brand of cheddar, eventually persuading local landowner Lord Bath to allow them to store some of their cheese in the same caves that gave the original cheddar its unique taste centuries earlier.
According to professor Paul Kindstedt, who teaches a course on the history of cheese at University of Vermont, cheddar’s origins go back to the 14th Century, when local cheesemakers implemented a process known as “scalding” (heating the curds to high temperatures in order to force liquid whey from the cheese) before pressing the curds into a harder cheese. Since a cheese’s moisture level is what makes it perishable, scalding enabled cheddar to last longer.
“The superior quality of the cheese caught the attention of wealthy Londoners who visited the renowned caves of Cheddar Gorge and dined on local cheeses during their visits,” said Kindstedt. “They spread the word, and the cheese from Cheddar acquired a positive reputation from around the 15th Century on.”
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Cheddar Gorge Cheese Company
HOW WE MAKE OUR CHEESE
There is no secret to the fact that all cheese is made in a similar way. It’s a process that transforms milk into curds and whey. The whey is drained and the curd remains; this curd is already ‘fresh’ cheese! It can then be strained, pressed, salted or brine washed. It can be eaten young or old, clean or with mould! Producing cheese is both a science and an art and each cheesemaker practices his craft in his or her own unique way.
Now, whether this was the result of a happy accident, or by design, no one can really be sure! The one thing we know, is that the production of cheese is an excellent way of preserving milk. The first cheesemakers learnt to transform milk into cheese to ensure ‘the perfect food’ was available all year round. Our ancestors got through lean seasons by preserving meat, vegetables and milk in many inventive ways.
TALKING ABOUT CHEDDAR…
Today, the variations of shapes, textures, strengths colours and textures of cheese are endless. Cheddar – the most widely eaten cheese in the world – is no exception. Sadly, industrialised ‘plastic-matured’ cheddar has taken that process and torn its heart out. There are a great many pretenders, but only one genuine Cheddar – and we are very proud to say, we make the only authentic cheddar cheese in the world; and this, is how we do it:
RAW MILK IS THE GENUINE ARTICLE…
Unpasteurised milk is freshly delivered to our dairy in the village of Cheddar, Somerset, each morning. We source our milk from one local farm, monitoring the quality, composition and temperature of the milk as it arrives.
Once our large, traditional open vat has been filled with this milk, we gently warm it. When ready, we add starter cultures – additional (friendly) bacteria and allow the milk to ‘ripen’ for a while. These selected bacteria play a vital role in determining the quality, flavour, body and safety of our cheese.
We don’t pasteurise our milk, ensuring we preserve the naturally occurring bacteria within it. As a result, our cheese has a more complex flavour than that made from pasteurised milk. Additionally, unpasteurised milk cheese can arguably boost one’s health and immune system, containing more probiotic bacteria, nutrients, vitamins and enzymes which would otherwise be denatured during pasteurisation. This is one of our cornerstones, and we are determined to preserve the heritage of this truly authentic cheddar.
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