| Cheese was originally developed as a way of | | | | Red Leicester cheese is another favourite. This |
| preserving milk. Now cheese is classed as a | | | | has a nutty taste and should have cracks in it. |
| gourmet food, well, some cheese anyway. | | | | This is another cheese that is infinitely better |
| Cheeses from different regions have their own | | | | when freshly cut, rather than shrink wrapped. Red |
| characteristic texture and taste because the | | | | Leicester has better keeping properties than |
| conditions that the bacterial fermentation is carried | | | | Lancashire and also works well on toasted |
| out under differ. Cheese makers can use fresh or | | | | sandwiches. |
| pasteurised milk, skimmed or whole milk and add | | | | Stilton cheese is made in Leicestershire and has |
| colouring. Different pH levels for the fermentation | | | | blue veins running through it. You can buy mature, |
| and different temperatures will alll affect the taste | | | | extra mature and vintage Stilton. Be aware |
| and texture of the finished product. | | | | though that once you have developed a taste for |
| Cheese is a very personal thing. Many people will | | | | the vintage cheese that you can never go back |
| not have foreign cheese. French people have | | | | to the ordinary supermarket variety. |
| never heard of the majority of English cheeses. I | | | | The extra cost for the vintage cheese is not high, |
| enjoy French cheese, but I will try anything. | | | | yet the taste comparison is unbelievable. You can |
| Camembert and Brie are made from pasteurised | | | | recognise a good stilton by the rind. It should be |
| and from unpasteurised milk. Look for cheeses | | | | about about one centimetre thick, crusty and a |
| made from unpasteurised milk. They bear no | | | | deep creamy yellow. The cheese itself should be |
| resemblance to the tasteless and bland | | | | deep yellow with plenty of blue veins through it. |
| pasteurised varieties. Unpasteurised cheese is not | | | | Most people do not eat the rind on Stilton, but it is |
| suitable for very young children or the elderly. | | | | edible. |
| English cheese is what I was brought up on. My | | | | If you eat vintage stilton without drinking a ten or |
| lunch used to be 1/4 of Lancashire cheese ( and a | | | | twenty years old port with it you are missing a |
| steak and kidney pie). Lancashire cheese is mild, | | | | taste combination that can only be desrcibed as |
| very pale and very crumbly. It is best cut from a | | | | ecstatic. You can judge the quality of the port by |
| whole cheese. Shrink wrapped lancashire cheese is | | | | how far up your sinuses the taste goes. The best |
| fine for cooking, but that's all. You can only keep | | | | port and Stilton combination I have ever tasted |
| lancashire cheese for three or four days. The | | | | was a 1991 Noval LB with a vintage Stilton. WOW! |
| taste deteriorates on exposure to air. Lancashire | | | | That made my eyes pop out, the taste senation |
| is the best cheese for making toasted | | | | went so far up my sinuses. |
| sandwiches, it has a very high melting point. | | | | |