Some time in the early Middle Ages a community of French monks moved northwards. Cistercians, a group who believed in silent,penitential lives, sought quiet, wild places for their contemplation. Unlike the Benedictines,who were gardeners, the Cistercians were shepherds, at home in the wild hills of Northern England. There they settled, thinking that their monastery was established until Christ's second coming, and there they made cheese,first from ewes' milk, then from cows' with some ewes' milk added for texture. And they were content.
But there came a day in 1540 when the tyrant Henry the Eighth, aided by Protestant fanatics,closed the monastery, stripped it of its goods and drove the monks from their homes. But before they left the kindly monks gave the devoutly Catholic locals, who hated Henry's "reforms", the method for making Wensleydale Cheese, which is still made today in their memory.
Move on a few hundred years and I received a telephone call. My second son,Peter,an avid foodie who loves cooking and cheese,had been working as a Summer school English lecturer in a college near Wensleydale and had been able to take a trip with the students to the creamery at Hawes where the cheese is made. He wanted to share his experience with his cheese-loving father. His one regret was that he would have liked to have spoken to my father, also a cheese lover, and bring him a sample, but by then my father was no longer with us. But a good day nevertheless.
Wensleydale is now a cows' milk cheese drawn from cows that feed on the sweet grass of the limestone pastures of the Pennine Hills, which you see below. It is a white,crumbly cheese great for cheese on toast. It has a flavour that is said to make it go well with fruit, sweet fruits go well with it, and sometimes are included into the cheese itself. This is a great cheese to serve at parties, especially if it is enriched by fruit
I detect an affinity of taste and texture with the gorgeous cheese Cheshire, but Cheshire, which is great for cheese on toast, one of my favourites, comes from milk from cows reared on the sandy, but well manured soils of the county whose northern border is one mile south of my home.
Comments
Crusty, unsliced bread, white or brown, sometimes French bread, maybe baguettes. go with cheese. I like my cheese on toast, and I Iove a goal's cheese and ham toasted sandwich. That is just my personal preference, but many people eat cheese sandwiches.
Previously, I intended to ask about bread and cheese and about toast and cheese.
What kind of bread (surely not this side of the pond-style sliced) is it that gets served? It sounds like you put cheese atop toast but not atop bread. Would that be a Frank Beswick-ism or would it be typical of your side of the pond?
One cheese that I really love is goat's milk cheese. While Britain is not great goat country [we keep sheep] goats are becoming more popular these days and some cheese makers are turning to it. The fat globules in goats'milk are smaller than the ones in cows' milk and this makes it the more digestible of the two. Goats' cheese is soft and crumbly, and I have never seen one that is not pure white.
Thanks for your comment, Veronica. I must admit that I have such a preference for blue Stilton that I often overlook the white version. If you added fruit to blue Stilton there would be a clash of flavours.I like cheese with chives, and I have also eaten it with nettles included. This was a firm, medium hard cheese.
Apricot most certainly is a modern addition, for the fruit is not native to Britain. Britain has a native species of cranberry, so it is possible that at times in the past it was added to Wensleydale cheese. However, being a bog plant, it is not found in the immediate Wensleydale region, where the rock is limestone, which creates a well drained terrain. However, if you study the Geology of the Pennines you discover that there are substantial areas of peat bog above the impervious millstone grit, where bog plants thrive.
I have eaten Wenselydale with apricot and cranberry, and I found that they go beautifully together.
Fruit is not added to the conventional blue Stilton . The white Stilton can have fruit added, The white Stilton with apricot is one of my favourite cheeses. Here 's my top 5.
Cheshire
Lancashire
White Stilton with apricots
Cotswold ( double gloucester with chive)
Chive and Pickled Onion Cheese
frankbeswick, Are the apricot and cranberry versions of Wensleydale a modern spin or a traditional recipe?
I am glad that you liked it. There is such a rich variety in English [and other British] cheeses that I could only give you a taste of the many cheeses that my country offers.
Oh my! This page is so wonderful. I love cheese. Adding these food gifts to my wish list. Must share it so others will get some ideas. :)
Cheese making in Cheshire is likely to be of great antiquity as not only is it ideal cattle country, but is in northern England, which for many years before the Romans came had a pastoral economy like Ireland's, so it is believed. In such an economy cheese making is an essential part of life.