We’ve been lucky enough to be able to spend some time in Tokyo over the last few days. The Japanese aren’t known for their cheese, either making it or eating it! We weren’t able to find any Japanese cheese during our trip but it was lovely to have a few days off before the hectic time ahead.
Easter is our 2nd busiest time of year after Christmas. It’s a time when families get together and there’s no better way to end a family meal than with a cheese board. We get asked time and time again “How do you put together a perfect cheeseboard?” Every one of us in the shop has their own favourite combinations, Ali is a great fan of our local cheeses, Jo will avoid a goaty option and Angela loves the French classics but mine tends to be very traditional selection, albeit a totally English one!
For me there are two options for a perfect cheese offering: 4 cheeses (a hard, a soft, a blue & a goat) or simply one statement cheese.
In my opinion the best 4 cheeses in our counter at the moment would start with Appleby’s Cheshire. This is one of our most overlooked hard cheeses. It is a deliciously moist, crumbly Cheshire with a rich, zesty flavour. Plus it’s fabulous colouring makes it a great addition to a cheeseboard. I would then move on to a piece of Baron Bigod. This amazing soft cheese is made on Fen Farm in Suffolk using milk from Montbeliarde cows. It is made in a very similar way to the French Brie de Meaux and the result is a deliciously, tangy, intense soft cheese with a delicate mushroomy taste. Then as far as I’m concerned there is only one option for a blue – Stilton. We stock a Stilton from the smallest creamery which is allowed to make this fine cheese, Colston Bassett Dairy. It is a perfect example of a Stilton, creamy, smooth, rich and flavoursome. Simply delicious. I would finish my cheese plate off with a goat. This is the hardest of all the cheeses to recommend as I’m a huge fan of goats cheeses and it’s difficult to narrow it down to one. We have an amazing locally made cheese (Sinodun Hill) and some fabulous examples from Pete Humphries’ dairy in Somerset (Nancy & Rachel are my top two from there) but for this combination I am going to go for a Herefordshire cheese, Ragstone. This is a mature goat’s cheese and as such it has a strong savoury taste. The flavours and the texture of the cheese compliment each other, creating a perfectly balanced cheese.
The alternative option is to go for one large piece of cheese. If I was to choose one cheese from our entire counter to eat it would be Jamie Montgomery’s mature Cheddar. For me this cheese represents all the greatness there is in British cheesemaking. Being an artisan cheese it’s taste changes slightly with every batch that we taste. It can also develop a slight blueing near its rind but that just shows that it is a handmade, unpasteurised piece of perfection. Ali and I had a whole disc of Montgomery as the base of our wedding cake. Every time I taste it I am reminded of that day and it fills me with total happiness.
So there are my choices for a perfect cheeseboard this Easter. We have so many cheeses in our counter and there are endless combinations you could have. All you need then is a piece of our 6 day sourdough bread, coupled alongside some onion chutney and you got a piece of culinary heaven!
Finally all that is left is for me to wish all of our customers a happy Easter!