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IV

Cheddar

By Horace Annesley Vachell

For the everyday, cut-and-come-again cheese I commend with all my heart the Cheddar. Other cheeses have their seasons; the Cheddar, as an adjunct to luncheon and dinner, as a neverfailing good companion to a glass (or two) of vintage port, is seasonable – as the good Mrs. Beeton puts it – all the year round. Living as I do in the West Country, not far from the Cheddar Gorge, I have to confess regretfully that the Cheddar cheese of commerce seldom comes from Cheddar. There is a story – probably apocryphal – of a lorry skidding and upsetting upon one of the green hills of Somerset. Cheddar cheeses made elsewhere rolled into Cheddar. Trippers visiting the Gorge carry away with them miniature cheeses born and bred in Canada. In fact, although it is held to be foolish to carry coals to Newcastle, cheeses are carried to Cheddar!

Nevertheless Cheddar, deliciously creamy, with nothing ‘soapy’ about it, is still made near Cheddar, a village at the foot of the Gorge, perilously overhung by the limestone cliffs. Huge boulders roll down into the gorge, but not one, so far as I know, has crashed into a cheese. Here, too, are the caves.

Cheeses are divided for trade purposes into two classes, hard and soft. Cheddar is hard, the typically pressed cheese, and the most important of its kind produced in this country. Stilton is an unpressed hard cheese, ripened by the aid of the blue mould which grows in veins within it. The best Cheddar is made from whole milk, like Cheshire. Canadian Cheddar does not greatly differ from English or Scotch Cheddar, but it may be manufactured from partially skimmed milk. So far as I can learn, the Cheddar cheese made in the valleys near Cheddar, in Wiltshire and Dorset is never made from partially skimmed milk.

Last October I assisted (in the Pump Room at Bath) at a Cheddar cheese competition, and I carried away with me a fine chunk of the prize-winning cheese of a firm and wax-like consistency, delicately flavoured, about as good as it could be. Why Cheddar varies so much in quality and flavour is easily explained. The best cheese – no matter where it comes from – is made at the right time of year when the pastures on which the cows graze are at their best and richest. Cheese made from milk when the cows are fed on fodder is inferior. One can amplify this crude statement. Certain pastures are so rich in certain grasses that the farmers (although methods are identical) who own these favoured meadows make more delicately flavoured cheeses than their next-door neighbours. A viticulturist can take cuttings from the Cabernet-Sauvignon grape, plant those cuttings on soil similar to the soil of a famous vineyard, employ a wine-maker from that vineyard, and – despite skill and care – is unable to make a wine comparable with any of the ‘first growths’. In the course of centuries something has been taken from and added to the soil of, let us say, the Château Lafite Vineyard by the vine itself. A famous vineyard, in a very true sense, makes itself.

‘Variety is a good thing.’

Be that as it may, Cheddar cheese varies disconcertingly. Stewards of famous clubs acquire great expertise in selecting cheeses; and any young member, who aspires to be a gourmet, is well advised to ask the Great Panjandrum of the Coffee Room what cheese is in season. Brazil nuts are an excellent adjunct to port, but they are only fit to eat when they come fresh from Brazil, free from any taint of rancidity.

Fortunately, thanks to the different sizes of Cheddar, and the time it takes to ripen, it is possible to enjoy this particular cheese all the year round. Unfortunately, however, the ordinary Man in the Street is at the mercy of the tradesman who sells the cheese. I asked a salesman, who invariably is kind enough to consider my palate, if customers (taking them by and large) knew the difference between good, bad and indifferent Cheddar. He assured me, with a twinkle in his eye, that they did not.

With milk retailed at threepence a pint, it is amazing that cheese can be made and sold at a reasonable profit. Happily, I am not concerned with certain trade mysteries. If, as I am informed, it does not pay to make butter and cheese in England provided you can market your milk, how is it that Canadian Cheddar can be sold at elevenpence a pound and New Zealand butter at 1s. 6d. a pound, when Canada is three thousand miles away from the English market and New Zealand fourteen thousand miles?

A housewife asks for a pound of Cheddar as she asks for a pound of flour, takes it home, sets it before the family who eat it with humble, we may presume, rather than grateful hearts. It is, however, a solacing thought that indifferent Cheddar, although the better quality is preferable, makes ‘a dish of cheese’ fit for the gods.

‘Asks for a pound of cheddar … as … for a pound of flour.’

The recipe of this I published in my This Was England and I seize the opportunity of setting down here that I received letters from all parts of the Empire thanking me for printing it. This recipe was cherished by an aunt of mine. On one occasion a great personage was dining with her; and she gave him this dish of cheese. He asked for the recipe. My aunt asked an important question: ‘Is this, Sir, a royal command?’ Her guest replied, ‘No, no, I ask as your guest.’ My aunt laughed. ‘I refuse,’ said she, ‘to give this recipe to guests, because I hope they will come again to eat it at my table.’ This particular guest assured her that he would come again – and he did.

The recipe was given to me, grudgingly, on the condition that I did not publish it in my aunt’s lifetime. But, before I was at liberty to play the part of a public benefactor, a lady of my acquaintance begged me to break my solemn pledge on the altar of friendship. When I refused, she coaxed me to come to her house to make this dish for her guests. The ingredients, plus a chafing-dish, would be placed – so she assured me – behind a tall screen in the dining-room. And here, secure from any Peeping Tom, I could play the part of the Regent of France, Philippe d’Orleans, who delighted to cook special plats for his guests. I promised to do this, but, familiar with the guiles and wiles of the Fair, I bespoke not only the necessary ingredients but two others. I found everything laid out; I made the dish; and it was acclaimed with enthusiasm as the ‘best ever’. A week later, I met this lady. She shook her fist at me. ‘You devil!’ Her husband told me that three times had his wife essayed to make the dish, before she guessed that I had been taking gross liberties with her underpinning. Here is the recipe:

Cut half a pound of Cheddar cheese into thin slices and put them in a stew pan. Add three tablespoonfuls of milk and a gill (¼ pint) of cream, the yolks of three eggs and the whites of two. Season with pepper and salt.

Whip it until it boils – and it is done.

Let your guests be handed squares of toast. Let the cheese be served in a dish. The guests will spread the hot cheese on the hot toast. The boiling cheese should be free from lumps, smooth as mayonnaise sauce and about the same consistency.

Unlike Welsh rarebit, this dish of cheese is easily digested.

I can find no mention of Cheddar cheese in my Dictionary of Quotations. Shakespeare mentions Banbury cheese. Bardolph calls Slender a Banbury cheese in allusion to the thin carcase of Slender. Nobody could indict the best Cheddar as being thin; it is agreeably full-bodied, plump as a well-nourished dairymaid. Bad Cheddar is soapy, villainously so. The noble cheese that was accorded first prize in our Pump Room had the texture of the best Gruyère. A kinsman of mine, now in his eightieth year, eats Cheddar cheese after luncheon and dinner nearly every day of the year. I have not asked him whether he attributes his robust health to this constant absorption of Cheddar or to the glass of vintage port which he sips with it. Heavenly twins they are! God’s Good Creatures.