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