Cheddar cheese
"close and firm in texture, yet mellow in character or quality; it is rich with a tendency to melt in the mouth, the flavour full and fine, approaching to that of a hazelnut" Joseph Harding 1864
Joseph Harding was the man responsible for cheddar cheese as we know it today because he introduced technology into the process. Though, I'm guessing, that these days the most expensive and gourmet cheddars are made with less technology and more tradition.
My first inspiration for this article is the lovely photograph above, which came from one of those old Gourmet Traveller magazines. I couldn't really cut out the words when I scanned it, so I left them there. The second is the grandchildren who love 'the cheese course', when they eat with us. It's partly because of David's bread, but mostly because they love cheese, and with the exception of our oldest grandchild whose favourite is Brie, they all love cheddar. As do we all really although some of us may be loathe to admit it because it's a bit infra dig really. Well it's English and poor old England does not have a good food reputation - although thanks to Jamie et al. this is changing.
The title of the article in Gourmet Traveller is, of course, a pun on Gorge - for Cheddar, the place, in Somerset England, is a village on the edge of a gorge and the caves in the cliffs were what were used to mature the cheese. Caves have the right temperature and humidity for this purpose, and some is still matured in caves. And one of the caves here - Wookey Hole is a famous tourist site.
As you can see it is one of England's more spectacular natural sites - the above is an aerial photograph, although it almost looks like a painting. And below are some vintage postcards of the village. The village must be at one end of the gorge although I really don't know as I have never been there.
Which I now feels is particularly sad because my paternal grandfather, whom I never knew, died of TB in his thirties in a sanatorium here - well in Axminster which is just about next door. The sanatorium is still there although now it's a home for the disabled, and I finally found an old photograph of it, taken a couple of years before he died in fact. I always thought that it was very sad that he died so far away from home (he was a Londoner), and most probably alone, but at least, I now see, he spent his last times on earth in a beautiful spot.
The British, unlike the French have not been all that protective of their food brands. There is no appellation controlée on the name of Cheddar and so you can find it all over the world in a variety of different forms, from fairly soft and crumbly to hard and solid, from mild to very sharp. Which maybe says something about the whole appellation controlée thing. Isn't it a bit precious? However there is West Country Farmhouse Cheddar which can only be made in Somerset, Dorset, Devon or Cornwall using a particular methodology. And I believe there is an even more restrictive brand which can only be made in Somerset and with traditional methods. Traditionally it had to be made no more than 48km (30 miles) from the town of Wells, but this no longer applies. I am guessing that there is now an increase in the number of local producers of cheddar cheese as the trend is away from the bland almost rubbery cheddar available in supermarkets around the world, to a tastier more refined product and why wouldn't the original location cash in on this?
Cheddar cheese itself is very old. It is thought that the Romans brought it to Britain from the Cantal region of France and it was definitely being made in Cheddar as early as the twelfth century. Cantal cheese is very similar in texture, but not in taste. It was in the 19th century though that it really took off, when Joseph Harding introduced his technological innovations which made it much easier to make. His sons Henry and William were responsible for introducing it into Australia and New Zealand. There was a bit of a setback during and just after WW2 when the production of cheese in England was reduced to a government sponsored brand. Alarmingly the number of Cheddar producers decreased from 3500 prior to the war to less than 100 afterwards. I am willing to bet that this is no longer the case, even if much of it ultimately comes from multinational cheese producers. Often when you look at small to medium-sized brands these days, you find that they are, in fact, owned by a multinational. Although those multinationals seem to allow them to still do their own thing.
So how do you make it? I found this description on the web but have lost the source - sorry.
"Cheddaring is the name of a particular process used to make traditional cheddar cheese. This process presses more whey out of the cheese by stacking blocks of curd on top of each other as if building a wall. The blocks knit together, and then are re-stacked until the cheese becomes quite acidified and stringy in texture. It is then cut into chips (milled), salted and pressed into hoops."
Which makes it sound a bit difficult to make for yourself. Particularly if you haven't got a convenient cave to mature it in. For the best cheddar is matured for some time of course. And it's also wrapped in cloth which is coated with lard. And I do remember being able to buy a cloth-wrapped cheese from Drouin at the Queen Vic Market. I don't know what happened to that because you can't buy it now. Colby cheese, by the way, which you might think is a cheddar cheese, is not. It is made with a quite different method and originated in America. (Another time perhaps.)
So what is the best cheddar that you can buy here? Well according to the 2016 Australian Grand Dairy Awards it's this one - the Bay of Fires Cloth Wrapped Cheddar - which will set you back around $70 a kilo - if you can find it because it's from a small producer who makes it in a shipping container in Tasmania.
But never fear. I found a few different taste tests and some of the results are surprising. Coles Extra Reserve Cheddar, for example, was given the cheddar prize at the Sydney Royal Cheese and Dairy Produce Show, and their Vintage Cheddar also gets the nod from several cheese tasters. Another highly praised 'ordinary' cheddar is the Cracker Barrel Gold Release (and also their vintage cheese). Me - I like the Warrnambool black waxed cheddar - which is almost creamy and definitely softer and crumblier than many, and which used to be called Watsonia - and I do like the Coles ones mentioned above. Mostly I like them all except the really strong ones. I generally use the cheapest one from Coles for cooking.
The other cheese that got consistent mentions in the 'best of' lists, is the Pyengana Cheddar shown at right. This is also Tasmanian. I'm guessing that this too is pricey and hard to find. You will have to go to posh food shops to find it.
And it is interesting is it not that you can now find shops that are dedicated to selling cheese, not just posh food in general, and that even your local supermarket will stock some 'gourmet' imported cheese of quality - not to mention Aldi who, generally speaking, have a fine line in cheese. Their Emporium Brand cheddar didn't get a particularly good wrap though.
Cheddar is still our most popular cheese - around 55% of all cheese sold in Australia is cheddar. In fact it is a tribute to the brand that it often is not even called cheddar - but rather just Tasty, or Vintage or Sharp - in other words cheese just is cheddar. So well-known there is no need to mention it's name. Cheddar = cheese. Cheese= cheddar.
And you can do so many, many different things with it as well as eat it. But you all know that.
