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Cheddar
"If
you offered me a desert island with only one kind of food, farmhouse
Cheddar would be my unhesitating choice." --Patrick Rance, The
Great British Cheese Book
Unlike
with
Champagne
, there
has been no attempt by English cheesemakers to preserve the reputation of
the Cheddar name. All kinds of aberrations around the world are labeled
"cheddar"--usually an orange shrink-wrapped block of waxy
plastic with little taste, unless it is called sharp or mature, in which
case there will be an acidic overtone in the flavor.
Real
farmhouse Cheddars, like those made by Keen
or
Montgomery
in
Somerset
, are
made with raw cow's milk and aged from six months up to five years. They
are a creamy, pale color, with a tinge of tan and gold, cloth-wrapped and
cylindrical. During the cheesemaking process, "cheddaring," a
milling of the curd that breaks it into fine particles, creates a silky,
buttery yet firm texture. The cheese smells sweetly milky and has an
incredible depth of savory flavor, with a bite from the aging. Steve
Jenkins, in The Cheese
Primer, describes good farmhouse Cheddar as "toffee, nuts,
apples, hay, and hard-boiled eggs," which intensify the older the
cheese is.
Steve
Jenkins also advises, "Serve Cheddar anytime you feel like adding
something wonderful to your life." On a cheese plate, with crackers
and a glass of tawny port; or in a sandwich made of crusty peasant bread,
with a glass of dark beer or ale; or melted on toast, with a glass of a
light red wine; or in macaroni and cheese; or accompanying a slice of
apple pie; or shredded in a salad with apples and nuts. The possibilities
for how and when and where you can eat Cheddar are (thankfully) endless.
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