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'Cheddar cheese' is a hard, pale yellow to orange, sharp-tasting cheese originally (and still) made in the English village of Cheddar, in Somerset.^[1]
Cheddar cheese is the most popular cheese in the UK, accounting for just over 50% of the country's £1.9 billion annual cheese market. Cheddar cheese is quintessentially English, with recorded references since 1661 (see quotations in the OED entry for ''Cheddar''). In more recent times it has been widely copied in English-speaking New World countries such as Australia, the USA and Canada, including French Canada.^[2]

Contents

History

Production

Process

International Taste

Status

Character

Record sized Cheddar cheeses

See also

References

External links

History

It has been made since at least 1170. A pipe roll of King Henry II from that year records the purchase of 10,420 lb at a farthing per pound (£3 per tonne).^[3]
Central to the modernisation and standardisation of Cheddar cheese was Joseph Harding in the nineteenth century.^[4]
For his development and propagation of modern cheese-making techniques he has been described as the father of Cheddar cheese.^[5]
A number of websites describe him as the inventor of the Cheese Mill.⁴
Harding was responsible for the introduction of this very English cheese into Scotland and North America. Joseph Harding's son Henry Harding was responsible for introducing Cheddar cheese production to Australia.^[6]

Production

Process

Main articles: Manufacturing of Cheddar Cheese

Cheddaring refers to an additional step in the production of Cheddar-style cheese where, after heating, the curd is cut into cubes to drain the whey, then stacked and turned. Strong, mature Cheddar, sometimes called vintage, needs to be matured for up to 15 months. The cheese is kept at a constant temperature often requiring special facilities. As with cheese production in other European countries, caves provide an ideal environment for maturing cheese; still, today, some Cheddar cheese produced in the UK is matured in the caves at Wookey Hole and the original caves in the village of Cheddar itself.^[7]

International Taste

Cheddar-style cheeses are produced in the United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland, Canada, the United States, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia (where it is sometimes called ''Tasty cheese''), Sweden, and Belgium. Much of this cheese is mass-produced and quality varies enormously. The strong flavour develops over time, with a taste diverse enough that food packaging will usually indicate a strength using adjectives such as mild, medium, strong, tasty, sharp, mature, or vintage, and may also indicate the maturation period.

Status

Cheddar cheese has become too widely copied to have a protected designation of origin (PDO). However, the European Union recognises 'West Country Farmhouse Cheddar' as a PDO. To meet this standard the cheese must be made in the traditional manner using local ingredients in four designated counties of South West England: Devon, Dorset, Somerset and Cornwall.
However, the Slow Food Movement, encouraged and advised by Neal's Yard Dairy, has recently created a ''Cheddar Presidia'', claiming that only three cheeses should be called 'Cheddar'. Their specifications, which go well beyond the West Country Farmhouse Cheddar PDO, require that Cheddar be made in Somerset, and with traditional methods, such as using raw milk, traditional animal rennet, and a cloth wrapping.^[8]
A number of large commercial food companies have in recent years established well known brands in the UK for their Cheddar cheese (Pilgrim's Choice, Cathedral City, Davidstow etc.). This move is considered by some to be a safeguard against the possibility of Cheddar cheese receiving 'protected designated origin' status in the future. Some companies have also considered relocating to Cheddar, Somerset if this occurs. It is worth noting that Pilgrim's Choice cheese is already produced in Wincanton, Somerset and would fall into the "Cheddar Presidia" approach.

Character

Like many cheeses, the colour of Cheddar cheese is sometimes modified by the use of food colourings. In parts of the United States and Canada, Annatto, extracted from the tropical achiote tree, is used to give Cheddar cheese a deep orange colour. The origins of this practice have been long since forgotten, but the three leading theories appear to be:

★ to allow the cheese to have a consistent colour from batch to batch

★ to assist the purchaser in identifying the type of cheese when it is unlabelled

★ to identify the cheese's region of origin.
Cheddar cheese was traditionally packaged sometimes in black wax, but commonly in larded cloth, impermeable to contaminants but still allowing the cheese to breathe, though this practice is now limited to Europe and to artisan cheese makers. In the United States, Cheddar cheese comes in several varieties, including mild, medium, sharp, New York Style, Colby/Longhorn, white, and Vermont. New York style Cheddar cheese is a particularly sharp Cheddar cheese, sometimes with a hint of smoke. It is usually slightly softer than milder Cheddar cheese. Colby/Longhorn Cheddar cheese has a mild to medium flavour. The curds are still distinct, often marbled in colour, varying from cream to yellow. Cheddar that has not been coloured is frequently labelled as "white Cheddar" or "Vermont Cheddar", regardless of whether it was produced in the state of Vermont.

Cheddar cheese is one of several products used by the United States Department of Agriculture to track the dairy industry; reports are issued weekly detailing prices and production quantities. The state of Wisconsin produces the most Cheddar cheese in the United States; other centres of production include upstate New York, Vermont, and Tillamook, Oregon.
Cheddar is also a good source of vitamin B12 and therefore recommendable for vegetarians. A slice of vegetarian Cheddar cheese (40 g) contains about 0.5 µg of vitamin B12 (required daily intake for an adult is 2.4 µg).
Famous Cheddar cheeses from Somerset include Keen's, with a strong tang, and Montgomery's, with an apple after taste and the unpasteurised Cheddar made by the Gorge Cheese Company in Cheddar itself.

Record sized Cheddar cheeses

White House historians assert that U.S. president Andrew Jackson held an open house party where a 1,400 lb (635 kg) block of Cheddar cheese was served as refreshment; this block of cheese would later serve as direct inspiration for two episodes of the Emmy-award winning television series ''The West Wing''.
A cheese of 7,000 lb (3,175 kg) was produced in Ingersoll, Ontario in 1866 and exhibited in New York and Britain; it was immortalised in the infamous poem "Ode on the Mammoth Cheese Weighing over 7,000 Pounds" by James McIntyre, a Canadian poet.
In 1893 farmers from the town of Perth, Ontario produced The Mammoth Cheese, at a weight of 22,000 lb (10,000 kg) for that year's World's Fair in Chicago. When placed on exhibit with the Canadian display, The Mammoth Cheese promptly crashed through the floor and had to be placed on reinforced concrete in the Agricultural Building. It was more written about than any other single exhibit at the fair, and received the bronze medal.
A still larger Wisconsin Cheddar cheese of 34,951 lb (15,853 kg) was produced for the 1964 New York World's Fair. It required the equivalent of the daily milk production of 16,000 cows.

See also

★ Cheese

★ Rennet

References

1. Separating the curds from the whey
2. The Interview - Lactalis McLelland's 'Seriously': driving the Cheddar market
3. History
4. History of Cheddar Cheese
5. Joseph Harding, Cheddar Cheese-Maker, , Anne, Heeley, Friends of the Abbey Barn, 1996,
6. From Artisans to “Factories”: The Interpenetration of Craft and Industry in English Cheese-Making 1650–1950, by Richard Blundel and Angela Tregear, Enterprise and Society, October 17th 2006
7. Maturing deep underground
8. Presidia Artisan Somerset Cheddar

External links

★ Icons of England - Cheddar Cheese

★ Andrew Jackson's 1,400 lb Cheddar

★ "Ode on the Mammoth Cheese Weighing over 7,000 Pounds" - full text of the poem, with notes

★ Cheddar cheese nutrition facts