Blue Monday No.7

Blue cheese divides cheese eaters. Some, like me, actively enjoy the taste of veins of Penicillium in their cheese, others naïvely limit their consumption to examples un-invaded by blue mould. Of course, when that first ground-breaking cheesemaker approached the cheese version of the Dragon’s Den panel with a cheese mouldy to the core, I expect he was met with some scepticism. But the proof is in the eating, and you don’t eat with your eyes, you eat with your mouth. A myth disproved by countless dishes that look horrendous but taste phenomenal.  

One can usually associate an increase of a cheese’s blueness with an increase of its strength of flavour and I have always enjoyed a powerful punch to the palate, be it a full bodied tannic red wine or marmite on a salty buttered crumpet. Life’s recipes sometimes need the wildcard addition of flavour that blue cheese can provide, on a burger, in a soup or improving a salad immeasurably.

Blue Monday No. 7 is a semi soft cheese that is part of the range produced by former Blur bassist Alex James. A strong USP and if I’m being honest, the primary reason for my purchase. With regards to the band, I never really appreciated them as the Britpop powerhouse that they were during their heyday. But then, I was still at primary school when Blur were charting at number one. As a teenager with an iPod, I had access to the back catalogue of music in its entirety and Blur did not pass me by. Although the band probably had equal play counts to Darren Styles so I am fully aware that I am in no way qualified to critique music.

The cheese’s name comes from music too, the title a classic in its own right by New Order that references the third Monday in January, apparently the most depressing day of the year. Mr James will no doubt be pleased to hear that upon trying his creation I felt the opposite of depressed. In fact, I was delighted by the mellow, creamy result of his endeavours that maintains a subtlety of flavour and faintly sweet taste. If I was inclined to draw parallels between blue cheese and Blur songs, and I absolutely am, then Blue Monday No. 7 reflects the gentle complexity and understated emotion of Tender (1999). While your bold Stilton would be represented by the brash Song 2 (1997) and a characterful Roquefort may summon notes of Parklife (1994), this cheese has a more nuanced effect on the palate. As cheese singles go (I know), it’s great to belt out in the shower, but it’s not a good tone-setter for a house party.

If I could only listen to one era of music, it wouldn’t be 90’s Britpop and if I could only eat one blue cheese it probably wouldn’t be this one. That takes nothing away from a very capable example of an easy to eat cheese. A little like Gorgonzola, it would go well in a blue cheese salad, or as a second blue on a large cheeseboard but it perhaps hasn’t reached the heights of the traditional British blue cheeses.

If Mick Jagger comes out with a Shropshire Blue then maybe that would be the time to examine the cheese/music relationship, and I for one am looking forward to that.

As for its hard to digest pun rating, Blue Monday No. 7 is somewhere between three and four stars, leaning towards an Aver-aged cheese.

☆              Camem-bare it

☆☆           Cheesed off

☆☆☆       Aver-aged

☆☆☆☆    Goud-a

☆☆☆☆☆ Un-brie-lievable

(I understand your confusion and disgust, and for that I am sorry)

Perl Wen

This week I am tackling a Welsh cheese. Appropriate, as at this time of year when the Six Nations are in full flow is where I really contemplate my place in this United Kingdom of Britain. I have lived 24 of my 30 years in Wales, a decent chunk of it by choice. I love everything about the country, except the nationalism, the Newport tunnel and the Welsh rugby team. I was born in England with Scots, Irish and German heritage (the latter yet to truly make their mark in the rugby sphere) and call myself British, rather than narrowing my nationality by country, county or village. Like a true band wagon passenger, I have supported England Rugby since 22^nd November 2003 when they won the World Cup. The World Cup is something that Welsh fans tend not to get too much into as they perform better in the six nations, where there are only five other teams to compete with.  At this time of year, I do always wonder if I should get into the daffodil hat business. Or dragon face paint stencils. Here it is not just a rite of passage; the cliché is accurate. It is passionate tribalism bordering on religion. Fair play. Best fans in the world.

The things about Wales that I love are more clichés. The craggy coastlines that look more abstract than local artists’ acrylic palette-work in harbourside cafés. The blue-grey stone mountains with sheep on the wrong side of the roadside fence. The language which is a pleasure to roll around the mouth and flick from the tongue like all the culture of a nation has been compressed into one word. I mean, I only know about 35 words in Welsh but I am picking it up slowly. It is a rural Wales that I know, and it is a rural cheese I am going for today.

Caws Cenarth (Caws = cheese, rhymes with mouse) make several cheeses and I have chosen Perl Wen (White Pearl). The most famous Welsh cheese is Caerphilly, best known from the joke, but I have chosen a soft cheese for a change. Plus, it is made 9.4 miles away from my house according to Google maps, so it didn’t have to travel far either. You may wonder which artisan cheesemongers I visited, or perhaps I knocked on the door of the farmyard cheese factory itself? Well, I got it from the Londis up the road, with a Lucozade Orange, a bag of McCoy’s Sizzling King Prawn crisps and 50 litres of diesel. (For the purposes of accurately reviewing the cheese I isolated it from the flavours and aromas of the aforementioned items).

When it came to tasting the Perl Wen, I took it out of the fridge and let it rest on a slate out of the dog’s reach until it had reached room temperature. Similar to Brie, it benefits from the rise in temperature where it loosens its belt and settles into its natural shape like I settle into a post Sunday lunch armchair stupor. The slicing and subsequent removal of a modest triangle of the white-rinded cheese is a pleasure. The glutinous centre sticks to the knife and the cheese reluctantly transitioned to the plate. Of course I licked the knife. The dog looked at me in disgust. I thought how idiotic I would be if I cut my tongue. Thankfully I didn’t which left me in good stead to properly appreciate the tangy, creamy richness of the cheese. It’s a proper glutton appeaser. Its already half melted which means no time is wasted chewing, the flavour fills the mouth and a second triangle follows swiftly after. Perl Wen has all the verve and tenacity of a passionate rugby fan, four pints of Brains SA in, as he sings Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau, hand on heart, an inflatable daffodil around his head.

The rest of this cheese will find itself accompanying smoked bacon and cranberry sauce in a lunchtime toastie tomorrow. A worthy home for a tremendous cheese.

On the unfortunate scale of straight-faced punnery, Perl Wen is at the top end of four star ‘Goud-a’ cheese.

☆              Camem-bare it

☆☆           Cheesed off

☆☆☆       Aver-aged

☆☆☆☆    Goud-a

☆☆☆☆☆ Un-brie-lievable

Lincolnshire Poacher

When I see the word poacher, three quite different things spring to mind. One is the illegal wildlife butchers of Southern and East Africa, another is that rustic member of the rural working class of a bygone age in the pastoral corners of this country and I suppose the relevant one is the cheese from Lincolnshire.

The African poachers with their Heath Robinson muzzleloaders, who needlessly slaughter culturally and economically valuable wildlife to remove horns, tusks and bones to satisfy the whim of an ignorant Eastern customer don’t deserve our time and consideration here. But the other type, that shifty countryside-dwelling rogue, holds an amusing and somewhat romanticised place in my mind. With his deep-pocketed ragged coat with sleeves stuffed with tricks to coax the local aristocrat’s game into his pot, he cuts an interesting figure. This character in my head comes from two books, the 1920’s copy of John Watson’s Confessions of a Poacher that sits amongst leather-bound bird books and my grandfather’s war diaries in my dad’s bookcase and Roald Dahl’s Danny the Champion of the World.

I am a huge Roald Dahl fan and that pheasant poaching tale is one of my all-time childhood favourites (alongside Dick King Smith and the Redwall series). I don’t want to ruin the story with spoilers if you are yet to read it, but it is an immensely enjoyable foray into the ways in which man can use his ingenuity to bag, albeit one of the less intellectually gifted, members of the edible bird community.

Anyway, I have digressed from a cheese review to a book review. The cheese in question, the third poacher, is Lincolnshire Poacher, more specifically Double Barrell Lincolnshire Poacher. No doubt referencing the traditional configuration of a shotgun. Although if you have read the book I refer to above, you will know that raisins in a paper cone with glue around the rim is a much more effective method of poaching winged game. The double barrelledness of this cheese refers to its maturity, having been aged for at least two years. Subsequently it is one of the more robust English cheeses that delivers a flavour worthy of its imaginative name.

This cheese has great depth of character. With its full-bodied richness it brings about senses of tawny port, tobacco and wood panelled libraries. Even the rind looks like the weathered paper of an Empire era map. I cut a portion of the hard cheese and paired it with a thin slice of crisp Braeburn apple and thoroughly enjoyed the resulting taste and texture combination in my mouth.

A cheese with such a strong flavour is best enjoyed in thin slices and if you are eating a selection, I suggest you save this one until last. There’s a good chance you are ending on a high, the taste lingers and its character is hard to ignore. Much like that poacher with a snared rabbit down his trousers.

Double Barrel Lincolnshire Poacher is a ☆☆☆☆ ‘goud-a’ cheese.

For reference and ridicule, The Cheese Review star system is as follows:

☆              Camem-bare it

☆☆           Cheesed off

☆☆☆       Aver-aged

☆☆☆☆    Goud-a

☆☆☆☆☆ Un-brie-lievable

Cornish Yarg

There is a good variety of defence systems employed by the flora of the British countryside. The steel like barbs of blackthorn, the snagging, scratching canes of brambles and the bitter taste of a dandelion that no doubt dissuades a grazing herbivore from gobbling it up. And also prevents a small human from eating with his hands for the rest of the day having handled the plant. There’s one species that rises above its peers in the world of vegetation that can hold their own. Urtica dioica, the stinging nettle is the plant that commands a begrudging respect, from me at least.

I was fortunate to grow up in a home with a reasonably sized garden, in which my siblings and I played war games, went on adventures and recreated the major sporting events of the time amongst the domestic and wild plants that grew there. The most significant danger was a seasonal one, when in late summer if you picked up a windfall apple to Henman-esque serve an ace at your unaware brother, there was a very strong chance that the other side of the apple was a buzzing mass of wasps. But this danger was short lived compared to the almost constant threat of the nettle. The regular occurrence of an inaccurate drop-kick attempt of a flat Umbro football usually resulted in a rescue mission foray into the nettle infested ditch below the hedge that bordered the lawn. Wearing shorts and armed with a bamboo cane pinched from the veg patch, it was normally successful but always came at a cost. The ankle bone, when wearing a trainer sock is a classic target for a nettle sting (incidentally, also one the worst place to be hit with a hockey ball on a cold day). Even less pleasurable is the inner bicep, often targeted by a well grown nettle which you have unsuccessfully tried to raise your arms above like a Royal Marine wading in a jungle river. I do think, however, the worst place to be stung by a nettle is the back of the knee. The thin skin that is constantly moving and maybe a little sweaty on a summer afternoon. You can rub the rash with dock leaf until that green tinge appears, but the irritation will last all day.

After all that, imagine my surprise when I learnt that people actually eat nettles. I have little real knowledge on the subject, but I assume that the nettle soups and teas of this world are solely consumed by sandal wearing off-grid hippies who survive on fair trade cous cous and foraged weeds. But there is another way. And yes, it is cheese.

Cornish Yarg, made by Lynher Dairies near Truro, is wrapped in the leaves of the stinging nettle. It’s a great USP, more than a gimmick and adds a lot to the cheese. The distinctive pattern of greenery on the rind is an attractive look, rustic winteriness as if the spring leaves have been frozen in time but on cheese. The nettles add a surprisingly delicate herbaceous flavour to the semi hard white cheese especially given its name which sounds like the first word spoken by early Homo Erectus in a cave under Bodmin Moor. In fact Yarg holds the name of its original creator spelled backwards, maybe inspired by that chap Robert who invented extra strong mints.

This cheese holds the balance well between self-supporting and crumbly, it slices well and breaks up nicely into fresh creamy fragments that I ate plenty of, directly from the cheeseboard. It’s a great addition to the strong dairy tradition of the county of Cornwall and should be welcomed to your fridge shelf or your slate-shelved cheese cellar. It stands out on the board and in taste holds its own amongst more mature and punchy cheeses.

On the star scale of embarrassing wordplay Cornish Yarg is a ☆☆☆☆ ‘goud-a’ cheese.

☆             Camem-bare it

☆☆          Cheesed off

☆☆☆       Aver-aged

☆☆☆☆    Goud-a

☆☆☆☆☆ Un-brie-lievable

Again, I apologise. My regret is eternal.

Red Fox

It’s the first cheese review of the year, and I am starting with one of my favourites. It’s probably a cop out to talk about a cheese I know and love, but I have some in the fridge so here we go.

Every time I return home to see my family, I undertake what is a now a traditional raid on my mother’s fridge, food cupboards and wine rack. I think it originates from my time at university when the highlight of the maternal visit was an all-expenses paid trip to Morrisons, where the largest trolley would be selected, filled and generously gifted to the poor and needy student who had spent all his money on beer. Nowadays I find a big box or a cool bag and under the protesting gaze of my mother I fill it with charcuterie, organic veg, left over cake, a nice Picpoul de Pinet or whatever I can find. There is always cheese involved, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree and I am convinced that this love of cheese is inheritable.

My latest supermarket sweep style home visit to see parents, siblings and nephews and nieces was exceptionally well timed. Two days after Christmas, when leftovers are still plentiful, but the novelty of special festive purchases has worn off. The fridge was still groaning with produce and at home, mine was expectantly empty. I was shepherded away from the New Years Eve champagne towards the cheese shelf and immediately the striking colour of Belton Farm Red Fox Vintage Red Leicester caught my eye. My mother being a compulsive food buyer and the matriarch of a large and hungry family, had bought a kilogram of it. This boded well for the handpicked hamper that was travelling back with me next to the dog in the boot. I was graciously awarded a decent wedge of the cheese amongst a few other interesting samples and was sent on my merry way, looking forward to eating a cheese board for lunch for the next few weeks.

                                                                                                                                                       www.beltonfarm.co.uk

Fast forward to a few days later, it is time for me to critically consider the cheese in question. It is lunchtime and I have come in from outside ready to satisfy my savoury craving. There is no doubt I will reflect on the virtues of the various cheese vehicle options available, but all you need to know now is that I selected a Carr’s Table Water biscuit to transport the Red Fox from the plate to my mouth.

I get ahead of myself though, this cheese is so aesthetically pleasing. Underneath the fantastically branded packaging is a Red Leicester that barks out a warning of its bold flavour with its vibrant russet. When sliced, the cheese crumbles away in shards and flakes like slate off a Welsh mountain. At this point it is impossible not to eat a morsel and the buttered cracker on my plate is rendered useless. The Red Fox doesn’t lend itself to neat slices, but it certainly suits the slicing and eating then slicing some more method of consumption. It has a depth of flavour worthy of its colour and popularity. The salty crystalline crunch is pure pleasure and gives a rustic and robust punch to the palate. It is simultaneously smooth and sharp, there is a creaminess to it, as a Red Leicester should have and the taste lingers, an intensified nutty flavour that is unquestionably moreish.

When it comes to rating cheese, this is in the top band. I have no method in place, just my opinion on the day. It’s a five star, 10 out of 10, top notch champion cheese that I will continue to enjoy as long as they make it.

FL

To crowbar some puns into this review and form some sort of five point scale I have come up with the following. Although there is no guarantee I will be able to stomach using it unironically in future reviews:

☆              Camem-bare it

☆☆           Cheesed off

☆☆☆       Aver-aged

☆☆☆☆    Goud-a

☆☆☆☆☆ Un-brie-lievable

I apologise.

An Introduction

As I sit at the kitchen table crunching on a Carr’s Table Water biscuit loaded with leftover cheese the dog hovers expectantly by my side, like a seagull behind a trawler hoping for bycatch. Perhaps he agrees with me that cheese is the greatest of all foods, and that that potential morsel of savoury goodness is worth the tap on the nose and the stern words when his tongue comes a little too close to the table.

It is the 1^st of January 2020, and we are in prime cheese season. Although cheese is a year round food, we are in the throes of peak cheese. There is a shelf in the fridge dangerously stacked with clingfilm-wrapped wedges of a variety of provenances and flavours. From a traditional Applewood Smoked Cheshire to a slightly suspect Aldi Truffle Gouda. There is variety, there is intrigue, there is delight and unfortunately there is a port infused Stilton which is a disgrace to both Port and Stilton.

It’s a bold statement proclaiming cheese to be the best food. But it is. I could just list dishes as evidence; mac ‘n’ cheese, raclette, pizza (it’s not pizza without cheese), etc etc. The list of cheesy recipes is both delicious and endless. But when you truly consider what cheese means to our diets, it becomes apparent how important it is. Everything that has cheese added to it is improved by the cheese. A cheeseburger is better than a burger. White sauce drizzled cauliflower has nothing on a proper cauliflower cheese. Melted in paninis, sprinkled over pasta, it adds value and brings joy. Cheese can be the final course of a fancy meal. It can be that quick 6pm supper. It’ll fill your lunchtime sandwich. Cheesecake is even a thing. And if you are in a European hotel, you can have it for breakfast.

So I am going to put my passion into prose and write about cheese. Every week I will review a cheese, and there is quite a back catalogue to delve into. It will be subjective of course, as with all reviews but there is no cheese snobbery here. I enjoy a Mcdonalds Mozarella Dipper as much as a wafer thin slice of Pecorino, each has their place. There is no place for cheese with fruit in it though, that’s just wrong. I’m looking at you Wensleydale with apricots. 

FL