Rare English Cheddar Choices
Ever since we first introduced it to Ann Arbor over a dozen years ago, English farmhouse cheddar has been one of the most popular cheeses on the Zingerman's Deli counter. Thousands of loyal fans have fallen in cheese-love with the flaky texture, and the rich, earthy, noticeably nutty flavor of this, the original, and still champion, cheddar.
Billions Sold-But Not Here
How rare is rare? Very. Each year, many, many millions of pounds of cheddar are made in Britain, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, nearly all of it mass-produced in large factories. Only the teeniest, tiniest fraction of a percentage of it (invisible on all but the most meticulous of cheese production charts) is made on English farms. This infinitesimal amount of cheddar comes from about ten English farms, counted down from five hundred a century ago.
But that's just the beginning. Of those few farms, there are only TWO farms left in the UK that still make completely authentic, traditional English farmhouse cheddar: the Keen's and the Montgomery's. Both are in Somerset, English cheddar's home county.
That's just the half of it. Of the 365 days worth of cheese made on each of these two special farms the Deli gets only the cheese of a few deliciously perfect days of production. Taste-tested, hand-selected and then carefully aged for us by our friends at Neal's Yard in London. When a wheel of English cheddar appears on the counter at the Deli it is very literally one in a million.
What makes a cheddar so special that it would survive a more extensive application and qualifying process than your kid might go through to get into Oxford? Here's a quick look at what makes this rare cheese so special.
1) The Milk From Just One Farm
"What difference might that make?" you understandably inquire.
Well, actually, a lot. The quality of any finished cheese is wholly limited by the quality of the milk from which it was made. While unskilled hands can certainly convert outstanding milk into mediocre cheese, only a magician would be able to make less-than-the-best milk into incredible cheese.
When a cheesemaker is using only the milk from his or her own herd, they manage every aspect of animal activity to insure that the milk they're bringing into the dairy is the best it can be. The highest quality milk is found where the herd sanitation is impeccable; when the animals are eating interesting grasses and herbs (in what is known in the trade as "multi-species pastures"); when the milk is being brought directly from the milking parlor to the dairy in its fresh raw state. The farmhouse cheese maker can manage these and a dozen other factors the way a superb conductor brings out the best in an orchestra.
Farmhouse cheesemakers have another advantage. The reality of late 20th century agro-industrial life is that most modern dairy farmers never eat the cheese that was made from their milk. Rather, the milk gets blended in with that of other farms, then is shipped off to some big cheese plant where cheese emerges with undetermined parentage. The farmhouse cheesemaker, on the other hand, eats their own cheese every day. For better or for worse the cheesemaker has to face up to the flavors in the cheese. When your name is on the label, you make darned sure you're that you're putting the best tasting cheese possible on the table.
2) Raw Milk Cheeses: More Flavor For Your Dollar
While you can certainly make good cheese from pasteurized milk, more often than not, the most flavorful cheeses in the world are still made with raw milk. Exceptional quality control allows a good farmhouse cheesemaker to work with traditional raw, unpasteurized, straight-from-the-cow milk.
"What's the alternative to raw milk?" you might wonder. "Cooked milk?" someone like me might say sarcastically.
Well, actually, that is sort of the case. The alternative to raw milk cheese is that made from pasteurized milk, which is, essentially, cooked. Most commercial pasteurization heats milk to over 160°F to kill all the bacteria in the milk. Now, don't get me wrong-there's nothing inherently bad about the process of pasteurization. It's done great things for improving the safety of liquid milk. Even in cheesemaking, it's been an effective invention for industrial dairies where it can be used to kill off all the "bugs" in mediocre, mass-produced milk, thus insuring high levels of consistency, health and safety. But the problem with pasteurization in cheesemaking is that it usually creates the milk equivalent of Muzak-always there, never exciting, never enlightening-contributing to the blandness of most mass-market cheese.
Although we think of farms as "dirty" and factories as "shiny and clean," the reality of cheesemaking life is that in many cases farmhouse cheesemakers are working with far cleaner milk than the technicians in big, shiny, new factories. The codes of milk management at farmhouse cheesemaking operations are far stricter than the standard commercial regulations. They have to be. You'd never be able to make raw milk cheese with the bacteria counts as high as those allowed by government regulation in milk that's destined for pasteurization.
3) Cloth Wrapping
While it's a rare sight these days, all cheddars used to be cloth wrapped.
"What's the big deal about being a cheese of the cloth?" you think to yourself.
Well, start by considering the alternative. Cheddar that's not aged in cloth-which accounts for about 99-plus-percent of the world's supply-is aged in plastic. And it doesn't take a scientist to determine that a cheese is going to breathe better wrapped in cloth than sealed safely in plastic.
"Does a cheese need to breathe?" you ponder.
Absolutely! At least good cheese does. Interchange with the air allows the cheese to mature properly, to ripen naturally, to develop the desired texture and fullness of its flavor.
"So why would anyone want to age cheese in plastic?" you inquire.
Because it's a heck of a lot easier-like the difference between making soup from scratch and opening a can. If you cut out the cloth, you just stick the cheddar in the plastic, seal it up, pile it in the cooler and come back a few months later to see how things are going. Cloth-wrapped cheddar on the other hand, takes hours of careful handling and checking-it's literally been hand-turned hundreds of times, no mean feat when what you're turning is a foot and a half across, 2 feet tall and weighs in at over 60 pounds.
The other reason modern makers have abandoned the cloth is because aging in plastic prevents moisture loss. Now moisture loss (to a point, obviously) is actually a plus when it comes to developing the character of an aged cheese-it concentrates the flavor like long-simmering does for soup stock. From a monetary angle though, moisture loss is most undesirable-the more the moisture evaporates, the more money the cheese costs.
"Can cloth really alter the flavor of a cheese?" you may wonder.
Well, take a nibble and let the cheese speak for itself. One taste will tell you that the flavor of a farmhouse cheddar matures much more effectively in its cloth cardigan than it would in a pair of plastic-sealed pajamas.
4) The Neal's Yard Factor
It's difficult to convey just how much a difference the Neal's Yard's contribution makes. I say this not because Randolph Hodgson, who started and runs the Dairy, is a good friend. But, quite simply, because I've driven many miles around the British countryside with Randolph on his week-long buying trips. And because I've turned a fair number of cheeses in the Neal's Yard aging rooms (though my meager efforts aren't even a drop in the cheese-turning-bucket compared to what the faithful fanatics at the Dairy do every day). And because I've tasted over and over and pleasantly over again the far superior flavor of the Dairy's finished cheese. More readily available cheddars just can't compete.
I know it's hard to fathom in this age of industrial standardization, but the reality of farmhouse cheesemaking is that literally every day's cheese is noticeably different. Some days the cheeses are good, some days they're OK, and on a few occasions they're truly superb.
"How do you find the great ones?" I asked Randolph the first time I went with him to buy.
His answer was so simple it makes me smile just to think of it: "You taste them." That's right. You just go down the line and taste one day's cheese after another, taking notes all the while, 'til you've confidently selected the chosen few. What does that mean in practical terms? Well, to quote from Neal's Yard staffer Dominic Coyte, "On a recent visit [to cheddar country], 80 to 90 cheddars were tasted and each person (yours truly included) had to consume about two pounds of cheese . . . The reward, however, is an insight into the diversity and range of flavours present in a great cheese."
The selection process doesn't stop there, though. The cheeses are brought to the Dairy for maturing: rounds of regular rind-rubbing, hand-turning and taste-testing.
"Why keep testing when you've already picked the best?" you think to yourself.
Because not all cheeses are born to age equally. Some will reach the height of their flavor development after only six months. Others will peak at eight. We're looking for the select few that will be at their exceptional best when they're a year old or over.
"How do you check a cheese?" you might wonder, imagining all the while the guy at the gas station asking if you'd like him to "check your oil."
The answer: you "plug it," using what the English refer to as a "tryer." A six-inch-long hollow stainless steel rod with a short handle is pushed gently but firmly through the cloth and into the side of the cheese. The tryer is twisted slowly around, then pulled back out carrying a small sample of the cheese inside. The taster takes off the tip of the cheese, checks it for texture, flavor and aroma, then reinserts the rest of the sample. The rind is rubbed, sometimes with a small piece of the cheese, to seal it back up.
The bottom line is that after all the years we've worked together, our friends at Neal's Yard have a really good handle on the taste of Zingerman's cheese-wise clientele. Each wheel they ship to us is consciously, custom-selected with us in mind.
Ready Thoughts on Rare Cheddar
The exceptional efforts described above are just stepping stones on the way to what really counts-the enjoyment of eating the finished cheese. English farmhouse cheddar has a flavor that stands apart from any and all of the countless copies made around the world. Try it for yourself and see-either ask for a taste next time you're in the Deli, or take home a small slice to start with. (Be sure to serve English farmhouse cheddar at room temperature, when the full flavor will blossom to its beautiful, aromatic best. It's not bad served straight from the refrigerator but it's sort of like watching Fantasia on a 10-inch black and white TV-why miss out when the full color original is available?) Leave a slight sliver to melt on your tongue for a minute. It's got a golden, almost eggy, nutty, flavor; an exotic, appealingly earthy aroma, and a richly delicious finish that produces near ecstatic reactions from most cheddar lovers we know. While many of its cousins have fine flavors of their own, none can compare with that of the original, and still champion, English farm cheddars. A rare cheddar with an exceptional, authentic flavor.
Two Other Traditional English Cheeses To Try
"There is nothing anemic about [Cheshire] as in other cheeses. It is, on the contrary, high in colour as a Scotsman fresh from his mountains, for whom whiskey has no terrors."
Maurice des Ombiaux, Les Fromages
If you're already sold on the succulent savoriness of English farmhouse cheddar, here's a pair of other traditional British cheeses to try. The Appleby's farmhouse Cheshire and the Kirkham's farmhouse Lancashire are two of Britain's best cheeses, each with its own storied past and delicious present. Each fits the same criteria we apply to the English farmhouse cheddars from Keen's and Montgomery's-made with raw milk from their own farms, aged in cloth, selected and matured by Neal's Yard. One difference-the cheeses from the Applebys and the Kirkhams are in a class by themselves: they are the only ones left making, respectively, authentic cloth-wrapped farmhouse Cheshire and Lancashire.
Lance and Lucy Appleby's Farmhouse Cheshire
I've been devoted to this cheese since I first visited the Applebys a decade ago. The Appleyby's are wonderful people, as individualistic and as full of character as their cheese.
The Applebys have been farming and making Cheshire cheese at Hawkstone Abbey Farm for close to fifty years. Lucy Appleby still sticks her head into the dairy for regular checks on quality, but most of the day-to-day work of the farm has long since been turned over to their children, Edward Appleby and his wife Christine.
Mrs. Lucy Appleby has an incredible way with the cheese. Like a master sculptor inspecting a new shipment of clay, she sees things in the first hours of a cheese's existence that the rest of the world would never notice. Her skill and savvy help keep the Appleby's cheese at the top of my list of favorites. Mr. Lance Appleby is amazingly stubborn. But it's that same stubbornness that's kept the Applebys making marvelous, traditional, farmhouse Cheshire when every other producer in the county has opted for easier industrial alternatives. Don't look now, but in the 1930s there were over 400 farms in Cheshire making cheese. Today, the Applebys are the only ones left-they make the last traditional Cheshire in England.
The Appleby's Cheshire is a golden orange cheese with the traditional crumbly Cheshire texture and a light, tongue-tickling flavor; dry like a wonderful white wine. Crumble some up on a slice of crusty bread and toss it under the broiler 'til it turns bubbly. Try some with a glass of good ale and a crisp apple alongside. Buy it now, while you still can.
Mrs. Kirkham's Lancashire
Working long and hard on her farm near Preston, Ruth and John Kirkham are the last guardians of a centuries-old British cheesemaking tradition. Traditional Lancashire is made using a unique production process. The "secret"-abandoned by modern makers in the interest of expediency-is mixing two different days of curd into each batch of cheese. The cheese is made entirely by hand, using only the milk of the Kirkhams' forty-cow herd. Every wheel has its rind hand-rubbed with butter to seal it for aging.
If you haven't had it before, farmhouse Lancashire is a lovely, cream-colored cheese. Mrs. Kirkham says it has a "buttery crumble"-a rich but delicate flavor and a soft, gently crumbly texture. Where the Cheshire is drier and sharper, the Lancashire is softer, more buttery. Lancashire is perfect cheese for "toasting"-top a slice of Farm Bread with a layer of Rosebud Farms Hot Apple Chutney, crumble on some of Mrs. Kirkham's Lancashire and set it under the broiler 'til the cheese is bubbling hot and lightly browned.