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Well I've just been through BenjiM's lactose tolerant stomping ground (which is indeed crawling with cheese and yoghurt manufacturers) and I have some sad news to report. The long time classic piece of landmark rural graffiti: "drink milk!" has been scandalously removed from a chevron bend road sign 🙁
@BenjiM
Thank you for taking the time to answer all my questions, very helpful indeed.
So do Snowdonia do the “cheddering” themselves?
That Hairy Bikers series was ace.
@mick_r On the corner on the way into Longridge on the Chipping Road?
@kelvin No they buy in 20kg block cheddar from the big producers such as Ornua, Dale Farm, Saputo (Dairy Crest) bowl chop it (basically a big food processor) until it's the right consistency i.e. creamy (add ingredients if required (e.g. Red Devil has added Chilli) and extrude it to shape either using a pressure extruder or a vacuum former, then run it along a wax enrobing line. The bowl chopping process for the most part removes the original texture of the cheese.
Edit: The buffalo cheese was one of my babies. World Cheese Awards Winner and just won best buffalo cheese at the international Cheese and Dairy Awards in Staffordshire (Class DP152)
Are you distributing free samples?
🤡
Will try it out if I can find it.
Yup that one. It got a giggle from the kids every time we pass it. Can you pop out for a pedal later with a brush and white paint? Pretty sure it has been there for at least 4 years.
Back to cheese - the science side of food manufacture is pretty fascinating. How do people end up with that as a career? Are the basics just long established and people learn and work up through the company? Or are people nowadays starting from a science (Biology? Chemistry?) or academic food tech background?
@mick_r Have you seen the forecast!
I started of packing grated cheese by hand and worked my way up (although I did have an HND in catering and institutional management), others would probably start in a QA role or have done some sort of degree in microbiology. Cheesemakers are really hard to come by particularly for smaller dairies, early starts and lots of hard graft when it's in a traditional facility. There will be others with backgrounds in nutrition who tend to get in to being raw materials technologists. Don't get me started on spray drying and microwave drying!
Cheers BenjiM. Will have to get the boy interested - he's doing biol / chem / maths A level and probably heading towards health science, but must admit I'd never considered that the local food industry used the same skills.
Homemade 6X Gold beer battered fish goujons, baby gem and tartare sauce
Somewhere in north Wiltshire, then, at a guess. Seeing as how 6X is brewed in Devizes. Beer batter does taste better, though.
to the big producers like Arla.
Ha! There’s an Arla plant just along the road from where I work in Westbury, and depending on the wind, it’s very easy to tell when they’re cleaning the tanks out, or pipes, or whatever. 😖
Westbury tends to deal with butter, fats and spreads, rather than cheese 🙂
Some interesting info on cheese caves here, including how to build your own.
Seems my gentle mockage of the term cave-aged has been rightly and completely crushed by stw having a resident cheese guru (should have known really). 🧀
I think it was more about the mental image that the word 'cave' conjures up, versus the more likely reality of a modern, hygienic temperature controlled warehouse that is still referred to as a cheese cave.
Versus
I still have Barn-sawn at least 😅
Edit to be honest, the top cave is similar to where Cheddar Gorge and Wookey Hole cheddars are matured (although not for their full life). Comte Fort St Antoine is, for example, matured in an old military fort. The caves of Roquefort sur Soulzon have a unique air flow which prevents stagnant air hanging around. Emmi's Kaltbach EmmenthAL is matured in a sandstone cave.
I'm getting hints of cheesy clam cave with kitten doors.
It was the Wookey Hole stuff I was thinking of. I took my daughter to see the caves and couldn't leave without buying cheese.
Dry-aged beef is another of my favourites. It's basically stored in a cold, dry place until the outside goes rotten. After the rotten part is trimmed off, the remainder has a nutty taste, like rotten meat but safe to eat. It does taste great, but the marketing nonsense is a bit over the top.
https://www.tomhixson.co.uk/beef/salt-moss-aged
Everyday's a school day, I had no idea that Cheddar is a verb. I've always thought it was the place the cheese was invented or the name of the bloke who first made it...
The M&S Red Leicester I have is "crafted by the award winning Taw Valley Creamery" according to the wrapper.
It’s not just products. Every plumber, carpenter, electrician hairdresser, builder, gardener etc is providing “bespoke solutions”.
It’s also a female lobster…
"And since they've taken buried hens, the lobster too are at an end" - from Streets of Staithes by Vin Garbutt.
It’s not just products. Every plumber, carpenter, electrician hairdresser, builder, gardener etc is providing “bespoke solutions”
My van says 'Bespoke Furniture' and bespoke is what I do, but I agree, there are an awful lot of 'solutions' out there.
I suppose anyone who deals in liquid mixtures in which the minor component (the solute) is uniformly distributed within the major component (the solvent), can confidently offer Solution Solutions.
That’s Aussie naming full stop
Aussie naming has a good dose of irony - Have a good hillclimb near me called Mt Buggery
Or often uses Indigenous terms to create near impossible pronunciations (eg Mt Ngun Ngun is correctly pronounced Mt Noo Noo)
Lots of BS terms around for food of the artisanal variety etc though. Where do you think the (anything but) flat white comes from?
often uses Indigenous terms to create near impossible pronunciations
Try Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu
I've been trying to find (without success) an episode of "How It's Made" about pizza, where it shows how pizza is handstretched...
The pizza flops off a dough making machine onto a conveyor in a perfect circle and is touched in opposite directions for about half a second by an operative who makes it wonky.
Oh, and the operatives are wearing gloves 😁
Anyway, couldn't find it but I did find this "Handmade" Pizza episode instead... see if you can spot the handmade bits
Where do you think the (anything but) flat white comes from?
New Zealand?
Not the same but: Hand made crisps. Which part of the process? & besides get your **** hands off my crisps.
Hand made bicycle frames always struck me as odd. Is there any bike frame not made by hand? I would guess even BSO frames have hands on them at some point.
bridges v grum round 2…
Grum seems to believe I'm against having high-quality products. I'm not; quite the opposite. What I am against, is the elitism and snobbery that seems to go with certain products, and bullshit pretentious marketing guff. I totally understand that companies need to be able to distinguish their products against the competition, but this thread is about pretentiousness and waffle. Truth is; nobody would be able to tell the difference between cheese matured in an actual cave, or in a controlled environment which replicated the conditions. And any difference resulting in terms of taste etc, is mostly subjective anyway. I'm happy to pay a bit extra for a nice piece of cheese, rather than supermarket bland mediocrity, but I want to pay for the cheese itself, not the marketing guff. I don't care if it's matured in a cave, or under a railway arch, as long as it tastes good.
rather than supermarket bland mediocrity
Pff what an elitist hipster
No but it really is. Nothing to do with elitism there. Supermarkets also sometimes sell nice cheese. Waitrose does. 😉