The Cheese Wheel Blog

As you can see from previous posts, I have been on a bit of a soft cheese jag for a while and getting away from harder chesses. Well, to rectify the situation I have been getting back into the hard stuff.
Having been born in Devon, my eye was drawn to a Devon cheese stocked at the local Fromagerie. Devon Oke looked solid and tangy and, being in the mood for a ploughman’s lunch, seemed like a perfect choice. So order up the ale, crusty bread, slab of ham and some branston pickle and I am back in an English pub on a rainy Tuesday afternoon. Minus the overblown music and disinterested snotty server.
Devon Oke is produced by an artisanal cheesemaker, Rachel Stephens, near Okehampton, Devonshire..Friesian cow’s milk for the cheese is solely produced on a 90-acre farm on the edge of Dartmoor; country well-suited to dairy farming.
The cheese is based on a 17th century recipie for gouda. It is brine washed and aged for at least six months. The cheese is manufactured in large round drums and develops a hard mouldy rind.
The result is a really distinctive cheese. It is hard and crumbly cheese that is nevertheless rich and creamy. Texture-wise it resembles a young manchengo

While it is based on a gouda style it is quite different from the aged Dutch gouda’s I am used to. The taste is very buttery and has a salty kick too. Unlike Cheddars, it doesn’t have that sharp bite and tends to melt in the mouth. It is has a nice aftertaste that lingers too, making it a good fridge raiding cheese. I found my self going to the fridge just to tear off a chunk to eat on its own at eleven at night ala Nigella.
It is a great alternative to Cheddar in a ploughman’s lunch. I found it a little hard for slicing in a standard sandwich.
Coming from Devon I am tempted to say it goes well with some scrumpy…that’s cider to you…but I think the clash of salt and sweet might be a bit much. I think a nice medium ale goes well. I tried it with the Wainwright Ale, an English brown ale, which seemed to go well together. If I was to suggest a wine I would say, mindful of the butter and saltiness, try a good meaty zinfandel.

Part of the reason for starting this blog was to help me learn about cheese and a bit of history and background, as well as finding out how they taste.

I saw Ilchester at the local cheese store and jumped at the chance to give it ago. My entire knowledge about Ilchester can be summed up by the following:
“And pray what is the most popular cheese ‘round these parts?”
“Illchester, Sir.”
“Illchester Eh?”
“Quite staggeringly popular in the manor, squire.”
“Do you have any Ilchester, he asked expecting the answer no.”
“mmmmmmmm…….No.”
Sorry, the cheese shop sketch was going to show up at some point.

For some reason, I thought this a venerable old cheese from the home counties but it is actually from Somerset, England and was created way back in 1962.

According to legend, or the company website at least, Ken Seaton, a hotelier in the town of Ilchester in Somerset combined local cheddar cheese with chives, Worthington Bitter beer and a blend of spices. The cheese was such a hit that a small cheese company was born. Today, Ilchester Cheese produces a variety of cheeses although the signature Ilchester Beer Cheese is perhaps best known. Probably in large part because of Monty Python.

The cheese itself is a medium and light coloured cheddar. It doesn’t have the sharp taste you might expect, but a mellower lighter one, although it retains all the texture of a medium cheddar. The cheese also contains a number of spices that give the cheese its distinctive black flecks. The beer taste is quite obvious although not over-powering. At first blush, it is a bit of an odd taste. And on its own it might be a bit a strange taste. But once I had a mouth full of beer, it certainly picked up a different personality and paired perfectly thereafter.

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The cheese is made with cow’s milk in the traditional cheddar way. Today, Ilchester is made with Fuller’s Ale which is added at the later stage of production along with some spices, which in KFC parlance, are a secret blend. The cheese is aged and then the wheels are wrapped in black wax.

Ploughman’s lunches are a favourite treat when I get back to England, although these days you are likely to get brie and an apple as you are cheddar and branston pickle. Still if you to make yourself a proper ploughman’s lunch, then this cheese would be a great choice…goes well with pickles, crusty bread and, of course, a pint of beer.

I guess when you are cloistered away with nothing to do but chant, feed the pet mouse and peruse a book written totally in Latin, your mind probably turns to many things. What to do with all the access milk would be one thing. What to eat given we are vegetarians. It is no wonder then that monks ended up being such good cheese makers. You need a lot of room, a lot of milk and a lot of patience. And a little joy and inspiration doesn’t hurt either. It is no wonder monasteries have been at the centre of a lot of the world’s cheesemaking.
The Cistercian monks of France invented Port Salut and when they went west to Quebec in Canada in 1815, they took the recipe with them. Today, Oka cheese produced until recently by those monks is perhaps Canada’s most widely-known brand.
Manitoba, on the other hand isn’t very well known for its cheese. Which is odd given the number of dairy cattle scattered about the province. So it comes as a surprise to find an excellent locally-produced cheese that is both available at the source and around the city. What’s more it isn’t some new upstart with a lot of gleaming stainless steel vats and a plant in an industrial estate. Trappist Cheese has been produced in much the same fashion for more than 100 years.

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Initially produced at the St Norbert Trappist Monastery just south of Winnipeg, and now at their new home in the town of Holland, the cheese is, in my opinion, an improved version of Oka.
Five Cistercian monks of the Trappist Order from the Abbey of Bellefontaine, France, established the monastery in l892 in what was pristine countryside on the La Salle River, south of what is now Winnipeg. This self-sufficient monastery included milking barns, stables, a cheese house, apiary, sawmill, and cannery. At its height, more than 50 monks called the St. Norbert monastery home.
By 1978, urban sprawl was affecting the quiet life the monks sought, and they pulled up stakes for the town of Holland, way out in the boonies south of Brandon. Although they continued with their cheese making ventures. The main monastery building was burned down in the mid 1980s, although some buildings remain as an arts centre and the ruins still host a summer theatre festival Shakespeare in the Ruins.
Today, about 20 monks carry on the tradition of cheese making.
Trappist Cheese is very similar to Oka cheese produced in Quebec. That cheese is, in turn similar to Port Salut from north western France.
Trappist is a raw cow’s milk cheese, with a semi-soft, buttery texture. It has a strong aroma and a creamy, nutty taste, although taste and aroma don’t really match. Trappist is slightly stronger and more complex than its eastern cousin.
The cheese is produced in 12-inch round wheels. It is pressed into a mould and surface ripened for 60 days. The cheese is then placed on wood slats, periodically turned and washed in a brine solution. The final rind colour is a pale straw yellow.
The cheese is now a staple at a number of Winnipeg restaurants and is a great alternative to Okas and Port Saluts. I am not sure of its availability outside the province but certainly give it a go.
With respect to wine….I would say go with something Canadian….a Niagara Red for example, Henry of Pelham Pinot Noir is a good choice.

Red Dragon and Lancaster Bomber

I have been a bit of a mustard connoisseur for some time. When I was a wee lad, my parents had friends who had a whole range of weird mustards. My folks were hardcore Coleman’s Hot Mustard types, and while good, it wasn’t nearly as exotic as Russian or French mustard. Hey, it was the 1970s in England — exotic was relative. So, I was intrigued when I spotted this little delight in the local cheese shop.

In Canada this cheese is known as Red Dragon. In the UK it goes under the name Y-Fenni, but with Welsh speakers a little thin on the ground in Canada, this cheese gets the reference to the Welsh flag.

Named after the town in which it is made, Y-Fenni (the Welsh name for Abergavenny). this cheese is obviously inspired by the famous regional dish, Welsh Rarebit. The ingredients for that delicious snack are beer, cheese, mustard – all appear in Red Dragon.

The cheese is a form of cheddar made with pasteurized cow’s milk which is then mixed with Welsh ale and a grainy mustard. The molds are then wrapped in wax. In the UK, Y-Fenni is wrapped in a pale yellow wax while in Canada it is red – which gives it an Edam look.

But Edam it ain’t.  I was eagerly waiting to taste this cheese and my expectation was completely met. The cheese is rich and creamy, but the real joy is the explosion of mustard flavour. Those mustard seeds burst in the mouth. But strangely, it isn’t overpowering. The flavour and texture make this cheese unique. The beer flavour isn’t pronounced either. But just as you can enhance the flavour of wine with complementary food, I found having a beer with this cheese certainly brought out the hint of ale.
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My first go around of this cheese was just to eat on its own, which was great. But the second time I melted it on some toast and it was clearly what this was meant for. It melts easily and smoothly and doesn’t have that oily, clumpy feel of some regular cheddars. I have not tried this, but I imagine this would be great to melt onto a burger.

On thing about this cheese is that smaller wedges goes south pretty quickly, so I would consume within a week or even a few days of purchase.

The traditional Welsh cheese industry was pretty much decimated in the Second World War, as almost all milk was siphoned off to wartime cheddar production. After the war, the large cheese making factories in England crowded out the smaller competitors. Even that most famous of Welsh cheeses, Caerphilly, almost completely disappeared. But as consumers began to seek out better cheeses and were willing to pay for organic or at least more authentic cheeses, artisan producers began to reappear and the Welsh industry is now going through a renaissance of sorts. 

So what to have, drink wise, with Red Dragon/Y-Fenni? Well, it’s a beer type cheese and a good brown ale goes very well with this. I have tried both Lancaster Bomber from the UK and Sleeman’s Honey Brown from Canada and both are very good. If you must go for wine, the a solid, heavier Zin from California would be my choice.

Apparently, this week is Grilled Cheese Month. Who knew? And not just day or week, but a whole flippin’ month.

I can’t say I have embraced this delight. I never had this as a kid – I don’t know if this was because it isn’t popular in England or I was just neglected – so I don’t have that comfort-food-reminds-me-of-mum’s-kitchen-and-childhood thing going on. My wife loves them although she loves them with the cheese slices….which, not to get all cheese snobby about it, ISN’T CHEESE.

Still, what ever gets you through the early afternoon – hell,  I like two slices of bread with crisps/potato chips between them so what do I know?

Now, this recipe for grilled halloumi, apple and honey panini here seemed pretty awesome when I saw it this morning.

But, here is a recipe for a riff on the classic French grilled sandwich the Croque Monsieur. Mmmmmmm c’est bon.

 8 slices bread

4 ounces ham, thinly sliced

8 thin slices apple

Cantal or Gruyere cheese

Mayonnaise

3/4 teaspoon dried sage

black pepper

butter

Preheat the broiler to the lowest heat setting. Combine a couple of tablespoons of the mayonnaise with the sage and pepper. Spread onto four slices of the bread. Them pile on slices of ham, apple and cheese on the mayo-ed bread. Place remaining slices of bread on top and butter outside surfaces of the bread. Place on ungreased backing sheet and boil for about five minutes. Flip them over and broil for another five minutes or until they are golden and toasty. Enjoy.

While I tend to be partial to the softer buttery cheese of Italy and France, I am English and so feel obliged to explore so of my harder crumblier native varieties. It is like wine. I tend to like Shiraz and Sauvignon Blancs but force myself to try out Malbecs and Reislings and often find myself happily surprised.

And so it is with Cheshire cheese. I had never tasted it before, often thinking it was some form of cheddar. Wrong. Cheshire is a joy all unto itself and a cheese with one of the more interesting histories too.

Manufacture of Cheshire cheese was mentioned in the Doomsday Book in 1086 and there is some evidence it was eaten during the Roman occupation more than five hundred years before that. There is a legend in the region that a cheese maker was put to death by the Romans for refusing the offer up the recipe although it is probably more likely it was the Romans that bought the recipe with them to their garrison in Chester.

Traditionally, the cheese is made from cow’s milk and was produced in the area along what is now the Welsh-English border around Cheshire and Clywd. The salty springs that flow beneath the county of Cheshire, and which water the area’s pastures, are said to be the source the distinctive salty taste.

By the 18th century, Cheshire cheese had become the most poplar cheese in England. Cattle disease had decimated cow stocks in East Anglia and Suffolk Cheese, which had been the most popular cheese in London was replaced by hard Cheshire cheese shipped in by boat from the Northwest. In 1758, the Royal Navy began to order the cheese to be stocked aboard ships for its crews. By 1823 some 10,000 tons of the cheese was produced each year.

As the cheese became popular, a number of producers on the Welsh side of the border began to produce “Cheshire” cheese much to the chagrin of the English cheese makers. The English insisted that the Welsh producers add annatto to their cheese in order to dye it red and thus distinguish it from the genuine article. The ploy backfired as Red Cheshire immediately became more popular and the English were forced to begin produced both red and the traditional white.

Cheshire Cheeses was aged to a sufficient level of hardness to withstand the rigours of transport to London for trading purposes. When rail transportation was introduced in the early 19th century, the fresher, crumbly cheese that we associate with the Cheshire cheese of today – became more popular.

There is also a third, rarer, variety — a blue cheese version is typically called Shropshire Cheese or Cheshire Blue although its base is identical and it is pierced at production and allowed to grow blue mold.

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Traditionally the cheese is made milk of Friesian cows. Milk from the evening milking is allowed to stand until the morning, when it is mixed with the morning’s milk and a starter culture is added. The curds are then torn into small pieces, passed through a mill and then pressed in moulds for up to two days. The cheese is then bandaged in lard and kept anywhere from four to eight weeks to ripen. The final product will be kept to age from four to 15 months, allowing the flavours to increase with age.

Both red and white tend to be semi-hard and crumbly. This version from Belton Cheese is pretty crumbly but it isn’t dry or chalky at all. Taste is initially a little salty with a sweet nutty finish and a slight tangy bite. The aroma is a pleasant one of straw.

Cheshire is a great cheese plate cheese and goes into a number of recipes including Welsh Rarebit. In terms of wine, something that stands up the saltiness would be good. A German Rhinegau or Canadian Riesling is a good choice. If you prefer red, then a medium-bodied Bordeaux would do the trick…or a plain ole California Cab that isn’t too fruit forward. You could of course go for what would be traditional in that neck of the woods — a nice brown ale.

I finally tracked some down — the world’s best cheese. Or the one voted Best Cheese in the World earlier this year at least.
Best Cheese in the World? I don’t know about that. Le Cendrillon is certainly unique. I am sure there will be plenty of fans of the cheese from Quebec Canada but I, frankly, was a little disappointed…especially given the awards this cheese has won.
Le Cendrillon (or Cinderella…how precious) is a soft ripened, goat’s milk cheese manufactured by La Maison Alexis de Portneuf, of St. Raymond de Portneuf in Quebec. It comes in a log shape approximately six inches long and well set you back about nine bucks. The rind is rolled in vegetable ash, which can be a little heavy…at least on my sample. I removed my rind before eating as I am not a big fan of chunks of carbon (unless it resides on top of a juicy tenderloin).

Recently, a Canadian cheese was voted best cheese in the world, stunning the usual suspects and putting Quebec’s cheese makers on the world fromage map.
I attempted to track down that world conquering cheese but, alas, no luck in my neck of the woods. But, I did manage to find another cheese made by the same firm, their version of an Oka like cheese — La Sauvagine.
And it was well worth the hunt.
A little disclosure here. The way this cheese is marketed is a bit dodgy. It comes across as a cheese made by artisans, by hand using locally sourced milk and rolled on the thighs of Quebecoise maidens. It is no such thing. It is made by Saputo, a rather large company although it is made in small batches, which does keep the quality high.
That said, it is an awesome tasting cheese, no matter how it is made and how little it has to do with Quebecoise maidens.
La Maison Alexis de Portneuf, based in Saint Raymond de Portneuf, in Quebec produce a number of cheeses that have won prizes and awards all over North America and most recently the World’s Best Cheese at the annual cheese championships in the Canary Islands. La Sauvagine is French for wildfowl and is named so because the area is home to millions of migrating ducks and geese in the spring and autumn.

The cheese itself comes in a small wheel wrapped in paper. In the tradition of an old style Port Salut, its rind is an orange salt wash rind that is better removed. It also gives the cheese its distinctive odour, which, if I may be frank, isn’t pleasant. It’s a pungent, woody almost gamey smell that is strong and doesn’t diminish with a couple of days in the fridge.
That bouquet is no indication of the taste however.
La Sauvagine is a cow’s milk cheese that ripens from the inside out. That means a wonderfully silky, soft centre. The texture is like that of a slightly runnier brie. (“Oh, I like it runny!”)
The taste is definitely one of cream, with a hint of something more earthy – mushroom perhaps. It is also a fairly salty cheese.
It definitely has a rustic taste, much more distinct, complex and flavourful than a Port Salut. There is a complexity of taste that is often lacking in other similar cheese, so if you track this down give it a go.
On another note, the company does spend some effort on packaging and it is duly noted. The cheese comes in a very nice little box with a light wrapping of paper as opposed to plastic wrap. That can only help too.
It is a great cheese just to carve off a chunk and eat with a glass of wine. With the salt and earthy flavours it can stand up to an earthy red wine like an Argentine Malbec or even a French Cahors. It also pairs well with spicy whites that cut that saltiness like a Riesling or gewürztraminer.

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Cheddar Gorge has undergone redevelopment apparently

Ah, the joys of labelling.

I’m a hard core label reader and you have to be savvy about the way things are presented these days. When a bottle of olive oil says ‘Packed in Italy,’ those olives were probably grown in a swamp in southern Bulgaria. But ship it to Italia in a steel truck container, throw on some fancy label with green, while and red stripes and a sepia picture of Perugia and now you have Italian olive oil. Bellissimo! Only it isn’t really the genuine article.

Ditto wine. I once walked up the hill to a famous winery in British Columbia and watched as foreign tanker trucks full of grape juice from who knows where rolled up and began pumping stuff in the back door. I am going out on a limb here by saying that juice wasn’t likely from Bordeaux. I am thinking Peru. But then Bottled in BC appears on the label along with pictures of Lake Okanagan and gold maple leaves and we are all good.

Now ,the English are dealing with the same issue only this time with Cheddar of all things. Can anything be more English than Cheddar? Well OK, dim wit royals, whinging, larger louts and bad teeth (hey, I’m English I can make those jokes).

According to news reports this week , supermarkets in England are selling Cheddar that says ‘Packaged in Britain’ although it is produced in places like New Zealand and Latvia. Latvia?

Of course, Cheddar is now produced around the world, and some of it is very good, but it seems to me that if you see the word ‘Britain’ or ‘UK’ on the packaging you should expect it comes from England, Scotland, Northern Ireland or Wales. I’d even accept the Channel Islands and Isle of Man.

According to figures released by the government in 2008 a record 136,938 tonnes of Cheddar was imported – more than 40 per cent of the total consumed in Britain.

Latvian cheese makers shipped 190,000lb of the stuff to England. By contrast, the last remaining cheese producer actually in Cheddar, Somerset, The Cheddar Gorge Cheese Company, only produced 110,000lbs.

Of course cost is a big factor — a 600g block of Tesco Value mild cheddar costs £2.89, while a 600g block of Cathedral City Mature Cheddar, which is made in Davidstow, Cornwall, costs £4.99.

So maybe that is the key, look for the more expensive stuff and it is probably the real deal. Or, on the hand, stop buying your cheese at supermarkets unless you find you like the Latvian stuff.

One the first “non-conventional” cheese, for want of a better phrase, I ever tried was Port Salut. This mild, semi-soft French cheese has recently enjoyed an explosion of popularity in North America.
It is pretty easy to find these days and most supermarkets will now carry it. Like many varieties, there are good and poor versions and it is worth finding a good cheese seller with a good line on a good version.
Port Salut is a semi soft, creamy, pale yellow cow’s milk cheese that is a great choice for entertaining and an alternative to the standard brie.
The history of the cheese is colorful and well documented. Originally named Port du Salut, the cheese is named after the abbey of Notre Dame du Port du salut at Entrammes, in Brittany. During the French Revolution in 1789, a group of Trappist Monks escaped the Terror and moved to New France. There, they learned how to make cheese to survive and upon their return to France after the defeat of Napoleon in 1815, continued the tradition. The cheese was made primarily for the monks in the monastery. But by the 1870s the monastery began selling excess production through a distributer in Paris. Sales were so brisk that the monks registered a Port Salut trademark under the title Société Anonyme des Fermiers Réunis or SAFR.
In 1959, the abbey turned over production to a factory in Lorraine. Today, Port Salut is produced in a number of sites including Lorraine and Paris. The taste is milder today than the original.
Handmade Port Salut or “Entrammes” cheese is still produced by monasteries throughout the north western French countryside, and retains the stronger flavour. This is a little harder to come by outside of rural France.

You can buy the cheese in wedges but it isn’t too expensive so if you can buy an entire wheel you should go for it. Wedges tend to be wrapped in plastic wrap, which retains the moisture but kills the aroma. Unwrapping the paper from a wheel yields a wonderfully heady and strong smell, which oddly doesn’t affect the taste. Discs are usually about nine inches in diameter and weigh under five pounds. The rind of the cheese is slightly moist and orange colored.
There’s some debate about whether you can eat the rind. Apparently you can, but I tend to remove it. It doesn’t add much flavour and can seem a little waxy at times.
The cheese is aged for a month and finished with brine.
The cheese is soft and creamy and offers up a mild salt, slightly nutty flavour.
It’s also a versatile cheese with food and drink. I like it with some crusty French bread and tomato. Brittany isn’t well known for its wine production, probably better known for pears and apples, so you may want to explore something a mild cider to go with the cheese. The wine does pair well with reds like Chinon and Bourgueil, both Cabernet Francs from the Loire. It also does well with Aussie whites like Semillons.

It is worth noting that types of Port Saluts are also produced other countries under other names. Look for Steinbuscher from Germany, Mondseer from Austria, Loo Veritable and Brigand from Belgium, and Kernhem from Holland. Esrom is often called the Danish Port Salut and is regarded as the closest to the original French monastery flavour and is worth seeking out if you are a fan of Port Salut. Its bolder flavor means it can pair up with dark beers as well as red wines. Made from partially skimmed cow’s milk it is cured in rectangular moulds as opposed to circular discs, has more rind washings and a longer cure time. It takes its name from the monastery, Esrom Abbey, which produced a similar cheese in the 1500s. Production of that cheese ceased in 1559 and it wasn’t until 1951 that the process was rediscovered.