Starting Full Fat Friday a mite early, and won't actually be eating them until Saturday night, but I've just thoroughly enjoyed spending £40+ on cheese.
Putting a cheese board together for an annual 'Christmas' dinner for 8 of us where, historically, excess has been very much the theme, so this year we're on:
Fivemiletown - Goats Log
Alex James' - Blue Monday
Cartmel - St James
Mrs Kirkham's - Lancashire
Ribblesdale - Smoked Goats
Kings Stone - Rollright
Quicke's - Vintage Cheddar
Doddington - Berwick Edge
Shepherds Purse - Bluemin White
Plus Millers Elements 'Fire' chilli crackers, Gluten Free crackers for the pair that need 'em, Claire's Cumberland Chutney and pickled walnuts. Need to pick up another condiment and another pack of crackers tomorrow, could maybe go out to 10 cheeses if I've missed anything vital - suggestions?
Doddington - Berwick Edge
Good choice.
Where does one get decent cheese from? My cheese-ploits mainly extend to the rather lovely applewood smoked cheddar from Sainsburys.
Mine are from a little specialist cheese shop in Leeds - George & Joseph in Chapel Allerton.
Swaledale ewe's milk.
Ah! We don't have one of those.
[url= https://www.wensleydale.co.uk ]Wensleydale Creamery.[/url]
Great place for a bimble, go on the tour if you're anywhere near.
The Coverdale is a cracker, as is the Kit Calvert and the sheep's milk Wensleydale.
Actually, it's all good.
🙂
Waitrose and Booths are both pretty good if there's one of them near you Mikey.
Farm shops are good for cheese, there's an excellent one by us, but it's not cheap, we spent about £20 last year for two of us. It was nice, but that's 6 bottles of aldi wine 😉
Rusty - had Kit Calvert a whole bunch of times, used to work in Dent and ride over to Hawes to the creamery.
Slowoldman - can't recall having that, but I'll look it out.
When I went in I thought I'd end up with lots of foreign stuff, and have managed to keep the whole thing UK. The nearest to 'foreign' is the Fivemiletown from Northern Ireland...
[b]Waitrose [/b]and Booths are both pretty good if there's one of them near you Mikey.
Now, there is one of those 
Farm shops are good for cheese, there's an excellent one by us, but it's not cheap, we spent about £20 last year for two of us.
So it bloody should be, or we'd all be making the stuff. Don't just buy it because it's expensive or got a silly name though.
But, but think about the Baby [s]J[/s]Cheeses
True captain, but IMO it's not worth £10-12 more than nice supermarket cheese.
I'm not a cheese connoisseur though, so YMMV.
Tunworth.
/thread
The cheese shop in Nottingham. Has some fantastic goats cheeses and a great range of unpasteurised cheddars and stuff.
Nommage will also be done over Christmas on cheesy goodness.
Supermarkets have improved with their selections but not as good as a Deli or independent cheese shop.
we spent about £20 last year for two of us.
I'd call that sensible. I love cheese.
I'm not a cheese connoisseur though, so YMMV.
It does. 😀
Next time you're heading to the lakes from leeds, make time for a stop here:
https://www.thecourtyarddairy.co.uk/
booths has some decent stuff but we are spoilt for choice with a good cheese stall at the weekly market and this place just down the road too!
I've eaten so much cheese, I'm able to travel through space and time...
Oh man I love cheese.
That is all.
Edit: That courtyard place is amazing, the smell is astonishing!
No French cheeses?
Tomaso - Nope, no French. Not by design, just the way it's gone - if there'd been a mind-blowingly good Brie I'd have 'ad it, but nope.
Thecaptain - been to The Courtyard a couple of times, and usually have to be restrained. It's on my drive back to my parents place.
Bigh - Think I've had the Drunken Burt, good stuff.
CFH - I'll have to give the Tunworth a try, heard of it but never found it around here
The missus was mildly miffed that we've only got one blue, but I'm not a fan of them, unfortunately. I'll try them, but the mould taste and sharpness isn't something I enjoy.
Fail - There's no Cheshire on there, the sweet salty crumbly king of cheeses.
Suggestions for the crackers?
You'll be needing some Carr's water crackers. Get either piccalilli or gerkin / onion combo. It isn't too late to do your own onions. I use pickling vinegar and pickling spices to 'up' the kick.
Sure you need another cheese? I'm not going to goolge the one's you've listed but I always go for:
one aged (cheddar - the stronger the better)
one hard (muchialago*)
one brie (1m x better than camembert). A very ripe one. Over ripe is something only the uneducated say! 🙂
one blue (roqueforte)
one goats / soft. I'm not a fan but that one rolled in herbs in every supermarket isn't bad. Not Boursin. More spirally than that.
^^yes, I'm a shite speller and on my third big beer.
*you know, like the Lambo
Hmmm, take your point IHN. We've got a Lancashire and a Cheddar for the 'traditional British' cheeses, though. Not sure the shop had a Cheshire in...
Okay MCPH:
[i]one aged[/i] - Vintage Cheddar - check
[i]one hard[/i] - Did you mean Manchego? They had a British Manchego-style, but I skipped that for the Berwick Edge, Gouda-style
[i]one brie[/i] - The Rollright is more a Reblochon style, could go a trad Brie or Camembert as an additional squidgy one.
[i]one blue[/i] - Blue Monday - check.
[i]one goats / soft[/i] - Fivemiletown is the trad soft goats log, plus Ribblesdale Smoked Goats as a second and another 'flavour'
Cracker suggestions are good. Water Biscuits are a good shout, we've got pickled walnut for the acidity, if I'd had a Manchego we'd also have Membrillo paste to go with it. Might try and find a tomato chutney as well.
Is Mark at The Farm Dairy still going, in Knaresbourgh? He was a bit of a cheese god if I recall and was at the time the sole importer of a Dutch 10 year matured cheddar called Northern Gold that Had to be experienced
Apparently not run by Mark any more. Never been up to it but it may be worth a mooch at some point to check!
Sounds good to me. Despite me saying I wouldn't google them all, I have been and my mouth's watering.
How've I never heard of Reblochon? Looks delicious. Like the brie I've always wanted!
Never had a smoked cheese that wasn't so terrible it gave me a squint. Smoking is for when you're drunk at 2am, kippers or haddock. Sausage at a push.
Yeah just googled but apperently the new owner is running it along the Same lines with the same staff, who certainly knew their stuff, so well worth a visit.
I miss Marks daily experiment with custom coffee grinds and blends that were tried out on folk like me and the staff at the crack of dawn every morning
Fail - There's no Cheshire on there, the sweet salty crumbly king of cheeses.
Now we're talking.
Hmmm, take your point IHN. We've got a Lancashire and a Cheddar for the '[s]traditional[/s] territorial British' cheeses, though. Not sure the shop had a Cheshire in...
😉
Now we're talking.
Hmmm, take your point IHN. We've got a Lancashire and a Cheddar for the '[s]traditional[/s] territorial British' cheeses, though. Not sure the shop had a Cheshire in...
😉
Ha! I know what you mean. To be perfectly honest, Cheshire was always my least favourite of the 'territorial' British cheeses, but then again I probably only had terrible cheap supermarket ones as a kid. Always hated a Cheshire cheese sarnie where half the filling had hit the deck before you got it to your gob.
Anyone care to recommend me a good one to try?
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Going to have to pick you up on something here.
Let's examine the evidence.....
1/ Excess is the theme
2/ There's 8 of you
3/ You've listed nine cheeses
4/ You claim to have spent £40+
Now - unless the + bit of that statement is a substantial plus, then something doesn't add up. Put another way - what are the other 7 people going to eat 😉 ?
I bloody love cheese me, and could do £40 on my own 😳
Re: where to get good cheese. If you want to be serious, google the local area for deli's, specialists, and also quite a few farm shops have decent selections, although they aren't always brilliantly kept.
And, a decent cheesemonger will let you try stuff before buying and also know what different cheeses are tasting like over the course of a year. Particularly the little ones, which often have total provenance of the herd where the milk came from and when, using single batch milk, often unpasteurised, and the milk and hence cheese does change subtly in flavour as grazing conditions change through the year, just like the same wine from the same vines can be quite different from year to year based on the growing conditions. So because you liked a cheese once doesn't always mean it'll taste exactly the same next time you buy it - unless that's what you want in which case there are lots of very good mass-produced cheeses where homogeneity is important.
And above all seek out some Stichelton. Christmas isn't Christmas without.
Ha, fair cop! I could probably put this pile away on my own, were it my only meal. But this comes off the back of 3 other courses, and the people involved tend to get competitive in terms of volume and/or richness.
