Choose the correct answer from the text. The answers may be in any order, and chosen more than once.

ENGLISH CHEESES

Which cheese.... ?

01. toasts well

02. is red, white and blue

03. is historically the oldest

04. can be made cheaply commercially

05. is made in summer

06. ripens very quickly

07. takes longest to mature fully

08. uses salty milk

09. does not last long

10. cannot successfully be copied

11. may need to be dampened

A.

CHEDDAR

Cheddar is one of the oldest English cheeses on record. There are two main kinds of Cheddar cheese, the factory Cheddar and the farmhouse Cheddar. Factory Cheddar is made of cow's milk wherever and whenever cow's milk happens to be cheap: it is made in as large quantities as possible and as economically as possible Its cost is usually half that of the genuine farmhouse Cheddar. Farmhouse Cheddar is made from May to October, of milk from one and the same herd of cows when they are out at grass It is made in ones or twos, from day to day, by a cheese-maker who is a specialist at his job. its texture is close and buttery; its favour is full and nutty but not strong, varying from fine to finest according to the skill of the cheese maker and the age of the cheese; its colour is the same all through; above all, it will mature with time.

B.

CHESHIRE

Cheshire cheese is a hard cheese, made from cow's milk, like Cheddar. It is the oldest English cheese. Cheshire cheese is made in two colours: red and white, but the best Cheshire cheese is the Blue, because it is both the richest and ripest. Blue Cheshire is not made ~ it just happens; it begins by being red, the milk from which it is made being coloured at the time of the making. Red Cheshire cheeses mature early and remain mild, whilst others, a small proportion of the whole, first of all lose their carroty colour and then develop a blue system of veins which spreads over the cheese, as in the case of Stilton and other 'blue' cheese. Cheshire cheese may be imitated like Cheddar and Stilton, but not with anything like the same success. This is due to the rich deposits of salt in Cheshire soil and the peculiarly saline composition of the milk of most Cheshire-grazed cattle.

C.

CREAM-CHEESE

Cream cheese is made in many parts of the country but chiefly in Devon and Cornwail. In the making of cream-cheese all that is required, besides fresh milk, is a piece of muslin and a perforated box. The cream automatically drains away its own excess moisture and becomes about as firm as fresh butter in three or four days, when it is ready to eat.The ripening goes from the outside to the centre. Consequently, the temptation is to place them on the market too soon, and when this has happened, the purchaser finds a cheese oozy at its surface but hard in the centre. Being short-lived, they are often salted and refrigerated for transport, so a genuinely creamy cream-cheese is found less by cunning than by grace. In the country, it is easier to come by freshly-made cream cheeses,

D.

GLOUCESTER and DOUBLE GLOUCESTER

Double Gloucester
In shape it is flat, round and large. Its texture is firm and crumbly. It has a pronounced, but mellow, delicacy of flavour, being pungent without being sharp. A slow-ripening ease, it keeps reasonably well, but in its early days it suffers from draughts, and when cut, however ripe, has that tendency of crumbly cheese to become dry, To mature properly it needs, say, six months.

Single Gloucester
Single Gloucester, made during spring and summer, needs but a couple of months to mature. It is usually white, and is of the same as the Double, but smaller and flatter, and from this it presumably derives its name. Being a quick-ripening cheese, Single Gloucester is rather soft and has a mild flavour. Single Gloucester is good for toasting.

E.

STILTON

Stilton is a seasonal, double-cream, blue moulded, semi-hard cheese; seasonal because can only be made from May to September; double-cream because Stilton is from the richest milk, to which the cream of other milk is added; blue-moulded because it is inoculated with a mould which is responsible for the blue veining of Stilton; semi-hard, because it is not put through the curd-mill nor pressed like Cheddar. The right colour of Stilton is white with veins of blue mould evenly distributed over the whole of its surface. The rind should be well crinkled and regular, free from cracks, and of a brown-drab colour. Stilton is at its best when fully ripe, not less than six months and preferably nine months after it has been made. It is quite wrong to add port or anything else to a good Stilton. It is only done to moisten it when it has been allowed to get too dry through exposure to the air. Good Stilton has been made from rich milk and cream, in New Zealand, inoculated with mould from England.

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