Having mentioned Comte in the Jumbo Shed,  I really like this cheese - despite it being French. Mark you. I have always thought the Jura a world apart, anyway, there must be other splendid cheeses I ought find before we in UK, sink into economic and moral oblivion. Suggestions would help. I peer in here through the Prexit steel door security view from time to time. Everyone playing nicely?

Comté is nice isn't it? I doubt there will be any cheese shortages in the UK at present since British customs are not yet applying any controls. Conversely I read of UK cheesemakers having trouble exporting, however even at the best of times the only British cheeses I have ever seen in the local big Carrefour supermarket are stilton and cheddar. If you want to stock up on French cheese you have plenty of choice: as De Gaulle famously said: "Comment voulez-vous gouverner un pays qui a deux cent quarante-six variétés de fromage? - How can you govern a country that has two hundred and forty-six varieties of cheese?". Monsieur le Maire of my village makes a very nice, firm, ewe's milk cheese, but I don't think he sells any of that outside of the immediate valley.



Fromagerie la Cazette

No cheese shortages to report in Barnstaple M&S Food Hall: all sorts of exotic cheeses - also EU fruit and veg and salad stuff - on sale. All nice and fresh - nothing sad and wilting, as if it's been stuck in a Dover HM Customs and Excise shed for a week or more. Even the EU slugs come with the appropriate certification. Starvation does not, as yet, stare us in the face.

But we do have our own lovely British fromages if Brexit cheese hell awaits us. Nothing like a nice bit of le Wensleydale or le crumbly Lancashire, washed down, of course, with a couple of shots of Chateau AstraZeneca.

One shortage I must report, however: no pumpernickel brot to be had in M&S. I asked one of the ladies if they had stopped stocking it, and she assured me it would be back on the shelf soon. Not like the Germans to mess up. Where is das Pumpernickel then?

Is cheese an elephant? I'm not sure if this is the right thread.

Call it elephant over-spill..... their real overspill comes in very large gouda shapes........
Of course the changes will come in little spiteful moves - not cheese related as yet but Unilever not having yeast to make Marmite is clear indication of the way things are headed. Marmite rice cakes already off the shelf...... I imagine there will not be an untoward rush for the last of the marmite hummus nor marmite peanut butter. I guess I had better sample red Leicester...... what makes it red, I wonder.. We really ought be able to make a nutty flavoured cheese like Comte ...... as I hear it there are a lot of silly cows in the UK.

Just had to edit my post: I put Chateau AstraSeneca instead of Chateau AstraZeneca. Was it a typo or a Freudian slip? Seneca was the one who made gory tragedy really cool, wasn't he? Oh dear - an unfortunate error.

Swiftly back to cheese etc.. If that Macron fellow thinks depriving us of Marmite will bring us to our knees, he's got another think coming. He'll have to come up with something better than that. Can't we make our own yeast? Is beer production threatened, too? They need yeast for that, don't they? Not that I'm bothered - I hate beer and Marmite.

Measuring Brexit success or failure on the basis of your choice of cheeses in a British supermarket at this moment in time simply confirms that many people in Britain have never really understood what economic suicide actually looks like. But then, these were people who elected for such suicide in some weird belief that it will make them better, so no surprises there.

At the moment the British government has decided, for obviously cynical reasons related to their own political survival, to open the country up officially as a smuggler's paradise with no checks of any kind on incoming goods, even those which common sense and a notion of protecting people's health might dictate were necessary under any circumstances, such as sanitary and phytosanitary confirmation that incoming foodstuffs aren't health hazards.

For goods coming in from the EU, where SPS tests are rigorously applied, even between the single market and EØS second countries, British consumers for the moment can expect to see these continuing, with "foreign" cheeses on their shelves for a while yet that are safe to eat and with prices as yet unaffected. The same applies to salads, market garden produce, and other agricultural and horticultural product.

But there is a danger, and it is one already detected by certain producers elsewhere who sell into the UK market. Jarlsberg, the Norwegian cheese manufacturer whose product is included within the terms of the TCA, have already noted with alarm that falling sales in the UK over the first three months of the year were not reflected in the stated sale of "Norwegian cheese" by UK retailers in the same period. This discrepancy can only be explained by "dumping" - the practise of flooding product into an unprotected market, a tactic that can be used to intentionally damage producers within that market or to offload product that cannot easily be sold within the market of origin. In Jarlsberg's case they have noted "white cheese" produced in various European countries - normally sold at budget price as "own brand" economy lines in European supermarkets - now being sold at rates up to 500% up on normal volumes to UK supermarket chains in some regions where it is then being classified as "European white cheese", "Scandinavian white cheese" and even "Norwegian white cheese", even though it might well have originated in Albania.

From the UK customer's viewpoint of course things look good - at least for the moment more choice for those who actually like even Jarlsberg-type rubbery white cheese with bland taste (not my thing at all) and reasonably priced too. However it doesn't take a genius to figure out what will inevitably happen if the trend towards letting e-coli in along with everything else continues, not to mention the local producers who may not survive such state-supported piracy for long as they are consistently undercut in price.

And of course there is the real damage that has already been done and which consumers may not have noticed as yet but producers in the UK most certainly have. Exports in the opposite direction have become difficult, impossibly so for some manufacturers, thereby weakening UK producers further and leaving them even more vulnerable to the same state-supported piracy that promotes "flooding" of their own market with goods, some of which may even be dangerous to consume. No one is checking anymore - retailers and wholesalers are basically just hoping they can continue to believe the labels, though over time such confidence becomes harder to maintain and the temptation to opt for the cheaper alternatives regardless of a providence that cannot be confirmed anyway impossible to resist.

All the above applies to all foodstuffs, of course, not just white rubber cheese. Substitute your own nutrient source of choice and the same problems are brewing - even UK food products traditionally sold solely within the UK market will not be unaffected as agricultural producers find themselves in a rapidly disintegrating logistics and economic nightmare forcing many into rapid adaptation at a loss just to retain existing domestic supply chains.

Britain has said it will start doing proper SPS checks at some point in the future (Johnson has come up with three different dates depending on who he is talking to), at which point UK producers will benefit from this protection. That is when you will see the shelves stocking less by way of choice, and remaining goods largely restricted to those produced domestically by whoever survived the state-sponsored piracy assault on their viability.

Bon appetit!

Priscilla wrote:

We really ought be able to make a nutty flavoured cheese like Comte ...... as I hear it there are a lot of silly cows in the UK.

True Comté is made from the unpasturized milk of Montbéliarde and Simmental cows which have grazed on alpine pastures, with the cheeses aged for up to two years in the stable, cool and humid environment of natural limestone caves in the Jura mountains. Just replicate that and voila, Bob est ton oncle.

According to Tried & Supplied the best British substitutes for French and Swiss melting cheeses such as raclette, Gruyère, Comté, or L’Etivaz are:

Ogleshield,
Cornish Kern,
Bermondsey Hard Pressed,
Lincolnshire Poacher Double Barrelled,
Botton Creamery's Summer Field Alpine

... none are usually stocked in supermarkets but they are readily available, for a price, from specialist cheese-mongers.

Priscilla wrote:

I guess I had better sample red Leicester...... what makes it red, I wonder.

The cheese was originally made on farms in Leicestershire using surplus milk left over once all the Stilton cheese that was needed had been made. It was originally coloured with carrot or beetroot juice but most supermarket versions now use annatto dye. It used to be called simply Leicestershire Cheese, but came to be called Red Leicester to distinguish it from White Leicester, which was made to a national wartime recipe in the 1940s, due to rationing.

Red Leicester producers, when I worked in the Irish Dairy export agency, were a huge consumer of Irish casein, one of the biggest in fact. This is apparently because whey proteins just don't cut it when it comes to producing that "tangy" Leicester taste, and UK casein is both inferior to and in shorter supply than its Irish counterpart. Irish casein meant that Red Leicester in particular could massively increase in production and break out of its traditional local market to become something of an international best seller.

Interesting to see how they get on now once casein has to be extra homogenised for third country sales as per EU regulations. Anyone for Pink Leicester?

Finding home-produced substitutes for beloved imported cheeses strikes both ways. Despite the conservatism of French shoppers, who generally stay with well-known French-produced cheeses, the one British cheese that one does regularly see in the supermarkets is Cheddar. It might of course be stocked mostly for British immigrants and tourists, but it does at least seem to sell well. However if there is any interruption to the supply, it can readily be substituted with a young Cantal cheese from the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region. Indeed so similar are they that once one has substituted Cantal, there's little reason to go back to Cheddar, particularly as Cantal is generally cheaper. And in any case a lot of the Cheddar sold in France actually comes from Ireland. Similarly, though Stilton is currently popular enough to be fairly often stocked in French supermarkets (at least around Christmas) it can readily be substituted by any one of a number of French, slightly crumbly, blue cheeses, such as Bleu d'Auvernge, Saint Augur, Fourme d'Ambert, Bleu des Causses or Roquefort.

nordmann wrote:

Measuring Brexit success or failure on the basis of your choice of cheeses in a British supermarket at this moment in time simply confirms that many people in Britain have never really understood what economic suicide actually looks like. But then, these were people who elected for such suicide in some weird belief that it will make them better, so no surprises there.

I know. What an incredibly stupid bunch we Brits are - we never really understand anything at all, do we? And our habit of laughing at ourselves must be infuriating - and baffling - to the rest of the world. The supply of cheese is not on our minds really at the moment: the nation is gripped in the drama of the Caterpillar Cake Wars. You have to read the Daily Mail to keep abreast of the latest news in this conflict. Apologies for posting a link to that dreadful publication on this site, but this article does offer a good resumé of the latest developments. I was astonished that the posh Waitrose caterpillar, Cecil, only gets one star. Is our class system collapsing at last?

La Victoire de Colin

Sage Derby is another colourful English cheese. It is shot through with a vivid - indeed virulent - green. The marbling effect is a bit disconcerting, but apparently no nasty chemicals are used (unless you get the smuggled Albanian stuff), just sage, a healthy herb, or sometimes spinach (also healthy).

Temp wrote:

What an incredibly stupid bunch we Brits are - we never really understand anything at all, do we? And our habit of laughing at ourselves must be infuriating - and baffling - to the rest of the world.

Some of the most astute - and sharpest - analysis and criticism of the current stupidity and corruption that is rife in Britain is being made by people within Britain, understandably as they are living with the consequences. So the generalisation "we Brits" hardly applies in this case (or casein maybe?).

If you find yourself instinctively opting - on some weird version of a patriotic impulse - to identify with those criticised, while retaining a sense of self-deprecatory humour of course in order to demonstrate your Britishness, rather than choosing to engage in trying to actually address these serious issues within your own society, then I would suggest your patriotism in this instance is rather misplaced.

I do wonder sometimes if my commentary on the shit-show that is a nation hell-bent on its own suicide, while damaging its close neighbours with an arrogant and ignorant disregard as it does so, would evoke the same reaction from certain quarters were I British and saying exactly the same thing.

I suppose this is not the time or place to note that Kerry Foods, currently responsible for 28% of all "English" cheese production and around 40% of what used to be called "English cheese exports" (an export market it had helped grow by over 300% since it first took over ailing cheese producers in the north of England from late 1980s right up to 2016) before a corrupt government weaponised public stupidity, is reportedly contemplating a complete withdrawal from the UK market. Seven large plants will be closed in England, three in Scotland (it is keeping its NI plants operating) with several thousand job losses, along with its logistics and marketing structure that was used to support, promote and keep viable hundreds of small English cheese producers (possibly even Sage Derby, as pictured above - it looks delicious by the way).

Of course, maybe there's a funny side to all that. The fact they're Irish, for example, might be good for a laugh ...

nordmann said (as cited by Temperance above) "
Measuring Brexit success or failure on the basis of your choice of cheeses in a British supermarket at this moment in time simply confirms that many people in Britain have never really understood what economic suicide actually looks like. But then, these were people who elected for such suicide in some weird belief that it will make them better, so no surprises there.
"

The pro-Brexit majority was only 4% in the referendum. I've heard some folk express a feeling that apathy among some of the voting population helped bring about that majority. One acquaintance of mine had an animated discussion with her son who was blaming the oldsters for voting to leave. She countered by asserting that some people hadn't bothered to vote because they took it for granted that the Remain faction would be successful.

I nearly always have British cheeses because they are the easiest ones to find versions made with vegetarian rennet. I haven't found an imitation (vegetarian substitute) cheese I like yet.

nordmann wrote:

If you find yourself instinctively opting - on some weird version of a patriotic impulse - to identify with those criticised, while retaining a sense of self-deprecatory humour of course in order to demonstrate your Britishness, rather than choosing to engage in trying to actually address these serious issues within your own society, then I would suggest your patriotism in this instance is rather misplaced.

Patriotism is for scoundrels, isn't it - or is self-righteousness really their last resort? What you posted above stung, as I presume it was meant to. I suppose I have spent a lifetime avoiding trying to address anything remotely like serious issues within my own society, so obviously it is time I woke up and tried to do or say something useful and responsible for once, before my time runs out. As for humour, self-deprecatory or otherwise, that is what has kept a fair few of us sane (using the word loosely) during the last year or so, here in our overcrowded and unhappy little Septic Isle (lovely bit of Irish humour that particular witticism, so apt at the present time).

Your being an Irishman who clearly - and with reason - loves his country of birth has nothing to do with anything - or has it?

I knew cheese would prove to be an elephant - great, lumbering beasts that trample everything underfoot - or at least the rogue ones do.

PS Was going to mention that dreadful abomination, cottage cheese - the shelves are still full of it. I don't think men ever eat this milk product: it is a torment women inflict on themselves. I wonder if French women eat it to maintain their famous slim figures. I bet they don't.

EDIT: Crossed posts. Haven't read new message yet.

Patriotism is a word that covers a multitude of virtues and vices. The way I look at the word is that it describes a respect and affection for one's own broader society - that expression of it at least that extends as far as one's national borders. However one can of course appreciate that society is much broader even than that and maintain equal respect and affection for this too. Patriotism just describes the bit that acknowledges the political and territorial entity in which you and your associates all live (or once lived, as in my case). So no, not for scoundrels, though being scoundrels they can traduce that concept along with anything else they turn their jaundiced eye to.

My own relationship with my country of birth is certainly not fueled by patriotism - I am ambivalent in that regard and my most active application of any sense of patriotism is that I reserve for myself the right to criticise that country, viciously at times, in a hope I suppose that such criticism might contribute in some way to an improvement for that country's people. I certainly feel for them when they are made to suffer from no fault of their own. But I am equally enraged when they, as a society, inflict wounds upon themselves - as they have as a society on certain occasions within my own lifetime and when I was anything but quiet on the matter.

What astounds me about Britain - or England in particular I should specify - is the retreat into passive humility and impotence by ordinary individuals even as their lives are being destroyed in some instances by this latest manifestation of corruption and ignorance on the part of a minority who are driving their entire society towards what can only be described as a nihilistic fate. Priscilla might glean some comfort from the fact that it doesn't resemble comic-book versions of armaggedon as yet, but were she - or you - to place yourselves in the shoes of the already hundreds of thousands of your fellow citizens who have been catapulted into dire poverty and despair by this deadly mixture of public ignorance exploited by uncrupulous and brazen profiteers (in the world's 7th most prosperous economy and apparently a "democracy" no less) then maybe a glimpse beyond the cheese section in Waitrose to observe the actual decay that Brexit and its facilitators have already wrought might be in order.

I am with you 100% on the cottage cheese issue. It is far from cottages that goo originated, and further from cheese as a product description it could not really get either. It doesn't even have the saving grace, like Marmite, of having a secondary function of some value (the salts in Marmite are apparently an irresistible if lethal slug magnet, handy to know if and when you next wish to divert any invasion of the creatures within your own more restricted territorial domain in the future).

Oh, and PS: to LiR, apropos earlier discussed casein, which is found in all the best cheeses of course as well as rennet. It is an animal protein - derived mostly from milk itself but equally extractable from abattoir offal. I'm not sure how far into the cult of the goddess Vega you have plunged, but just be aware that even your so-called "veggie" cheese may unavoidably have had more than a passing acquaintance with what I have been told is no less than the mass murder of innocent bovines and ovines in its dim and murky origins.

Well, I know me place. Honestly, in my passive humility, I've never been into a Waitrose -our local places are more Asda, Ice and Lydal-land with Tesco for the very posh. Not being knee deep in the starving throng as yet - not one so far,  in truth I've not much to rebel about yet - I'll probably find something to burn in the street when the time comes. (Suggestions on the back of a stamp, please.)
With all the Kerry cheese places closing here, maybe our small cheese makers will get a look in. ....hope they don't find daft names for their stuff. All the ale makers about here - dozens - seem to think that stale poo sort of names best for their ale.... mark you I have never tasted either.
I sincerely thank MM for pointing out Comte style English cheeses - now to find them.
We, of course, have a double whammy to overcome Brexit and the expense of Corvid. As our lovely site Eeyore, nord, points out, grim times are probably coming. But our shops are full, the food tables in the sun all booked, booze in the fresh air in flowery pub gardens, all seem to be happening here - and what I am hearing from all sides is about how people are now growing their own veg, and surprised by how much they have saved by not going abroad, getting the car out for jaunts and getting takeaways. So we can still smile and say cheese to the camera  for a bit longer. And did nord really have to sadden Our Lady of the Site's day about his understanding of the rennet used in her veggie cheese? Not nice.
I guess it is time for me to recoil into my corrupt contemptible English Prexit box again to ponder  the wonderful and pure, unsullied glories of the  EU  past, present and future.

If Brexit follows the Prexit model it looks like the UK (or whatever's left of it) might end up as half in and half out of that which one young recipient of what currently passes for education in Essex recently told a BBC reporter on vox-pop duties was known as the "European singles market".

I don't think she meant cheese singles either.

PS: I can't change the ingredients of cheese, Priscilla, not even veggie cheese (and it wasn't the rennet but the casein to which I referred). LiR is one small Google click away anyway from discovering the true and awful perfidity of the great goddess Vega, a harsh task-mistress by all accounts who demands unquestioning obedience from her devotees while keeping her half-sisters Anorexia, Nervosa and Bulimia concealed beneath her skirts, ready to pounce and ironically devour those who dare to touch her hem.

Ahem.

As ever greatly misunderstood, Essex educated youths are just not interested in the European Long Playing Market - and probably not much else either.
And Temps, cottage cheese is a rite of passage and bought only for the early days of starting a diet to look impressive at check out... and as the first step in dietary sanctimony, when it gets green bits on the top in the fridge it can be then chucked out. Speaking of which, if you, nord, should get a chunk of that green spotted cheese in the post, do check it out veerryy carefully.

I think in fact I have seen green spotted cheese come in the post before, Priscilla. To what I realise now must be my shame, I have always blamed the postman.

Returning to more historical matters of cheesy interest:

The Congress of Vienna - to decide on the new political order after the fall of Napoleon - kicked off in July 1814 and rambled on for nearly a year. Most of the negotiating took place in small meetings of representatives of the most important countries, although almost all the small states whose rulers had been restored to their thrones with Napoleon’s overthrow chose to send people to the Congress. Hundreds of representatives turned up with their entourages, swelling the population of Vienna by more than a third. With Napoleon apparently defeated, all of these people felt they had something to celebrate and it became a matter of pride for each nation's representatives to try and outdo each other with grand entertainments. There were parties, balls, banquets, sporting events and competitions.

One particular banquet was hosted by that wiley old diplomat, Talleyrand, who had been Foreign Minister under Napoleon but had cannily abandoned his former master and was now serving in the same role for the restored French King, Louis XVIII. Towards the end of the banquet Talleyrand organised a grand cheese tasting to determine the greatest cheese of Europe. For Britain Lord Castlereagh nominated English stilton, Baron Hans von Gagern, representing the Prince of Orange, proposed Dutch limburger, Charles Pictet de Rochemont, the senior Swiss diplomat offered gruyère, Agostino Pareto, Senator of the Republic of Genoa, suggested stracchino, and so on, while Talleyrand himself nominated brie de Meaux. In all 52 cheeses were paraded up and down the tables but there was really no contest: after a vote France's brie de Meaux resoundingly won the contest and was crowned "le roi des fromages'.

Honestly, isn't that just typical? I bet our cheese scored nul points. See if we care. 

Henry II was a cheese addict - he loved cheddar, apparently. Someone sent Queen Victoria a colossal wheel of cheese as a wedding present - it weighed more than half a ton. What on earth does half a ton of cheddar look like? And where would you put it?

Large rounds of anything, really, our monarchs can keep in big round places - keeps.( eg there's one at Windsor.) In these one can keep large rounds of ale, guns and cheese and sakes, even - and of course, port. Probably a Norman invention - several Essex churches have round towers. I do not know why. There's much about Essex that is a mystery..... we've never had a Duke - and no cheese made at all.

Temperance wrote:

Honestly, isn't that just typical? I bet our cheese scored nul points. See if we care. 

Only because Norway, the traditional "nul pointers" in such competitions, weren't even invited (Britain had instead decided that poor country should be given as a "gift" to the Swedes, apparently). Had Norway been there then Jarlsberg would inevitably have ended up on the platters for judgement and Royaume-Uni could have reverted to its more usual place hovering just above the bottom rung on the scoreboard, having its stilton ranked as a plucky little trier if rather tasteless and off-key, but worthy of at least one consolation point from Malta.

Temperance wrote:

What on earth does half a ton of cheddar look like?

Exactly like this ... from the Daily Mail, 3 June 2010: "Cordon Bleu trained chef Tanys Pullin, 46, spent 90 hours crafting it out of a 1,322lb block of Farmhouse Cheddar. She carved the sculpture in the shape of a crown to mark the anniversary of the Queen's Coronation on June 2."

deleted: message not on its place overhere..

And thus another thread gets bare. So here endeth the cheese course - with sour grapes and nuts but a really decent port would be nice.

Doesn't Red Windsor usually have port in it?
Though I think it can have Bordeaux instead

There's an Italian cheese from Treviso that is soaked in wine for several months so that the wheels infuse the flavour and, when pierced, get red streaks through the cheese. It's called Ubriaco, which means 'drunk' (as in sloshed). Seems a bit of a waste of wine to me.

Used to be fashioable to "feed" stilton with port - a hole through the crust and administer the wine. My mother's then employer overdid it, and, when the rind was cut, a port-and-stilton slurry poured out.

My aunt gave her Christmas cake a daily shot of port for a month. It really was very good and where I began my life long love of it from a very early age. I guess I like the cake too.

Port with Stlton is how I always remember the 'correct' order of courses in France. In Britain one usually has the dessert before finally the cheese course (including an English Stilton of course) with the cheese accompanied by the port which one can lesurely pass around and around the table long after the meal proper has finished. In France however it is usual to have the cheese course, with wine or port, but before the final dessert, which might be served with a white dessert wine such as a Muscat de Riversaltes or a Sauternes. Since I adore cheese and don't have a sweet tooth I prefer the British way, ending very lesuirely with port and cheese ... then more port and cheese, then just a wee bit more port etc. Then in Belgium it's quite common to have chilled port as an apéritif - but what do they know?

In the Royal Navy, at formal wardroom dinners, the port circulates one way, and the madeira the other, with the stewards making careful note of how many glasses each officer takes, so that an appropriate amount can be charged .... so beware!

At the 1815 Congress of Vienna Talleyrand might have managed to get Brie hailed as "the king of cheeses", but in France it was already well-known as the "cheese of kings", having been prized by the French monarchy for centuries.

Brie de Meaux was originally made by the monks at the priory of Rueil-en-Brie principally for their own consumption, but the cheese got its big break in 774 when Emperor Charlemagne, on his way home from defeating the Lombards, stopped by. As recorded in the 'Gesta Karoli' (the "deeds of Charlemagne") written by the Notker the Stammerer, the Monk of St Gall (c. 840-912);

"Now on that day, being the sixth day of the week, he was not willing to eat the flesh of beast or bird. The bishop, being by reason of the nature of the place unable to procure fish immediately, ordered some excellent cheese, white with fat, to be placed before him. Charles … required nothing else, but taking up his knife and throwing away the mould, which seemed to him abominable, he ate the white of the cheese. Then the bishop, who was standing nearby like a servant, drew close and said, 'Why do you do that, lord Emperor? You are throwing away the best part.' On the persuasion of the bishop, Charles … put a piece of the mould in his mouth and slowly ate it and swallowed it like butter. Then, approving the bishop's advice, he said 'Very true, my good host,' and he added, 'Be sure to send me every year two cartloads of such cheeses."

King Philippe-Auguste was also a great fan of brie and in 1217 had 200 rounds of the cheese distributed amongst the members of his court as a New Year's gift (which does seem a little bit cheap, he was the King after all), whilst in 1593 Henri IV also fell under the spell of brie when his wife, Queen Margot, served it to him. So enamoured of it was he that she cannily made sure she always had some in stock to tempt him, especially because his mistress, Gabrielle d’ Estrées, apparently didn't like it.

Louis XIV ordered fifty waggons of Brie to be delivered to Versailles every week, but the last king to be completely besotted with brie was the last king of France before the monarchy fell. In June of 1791 Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette decided to flee Paris for the safety of the royalist fortress of Montmedy, 200 miles away. Just 20 miles from their destination, Louis, feeling peckish, decided to stop at an inn for some brie and a glass of burgundy, or at least so the story goes (other more local specialities have also been claimed as the fatefully tempting snack). Unfortunately the royal party had been recognised a few towns further back and this little pit-stop allowed the pursuing soldiers time to catch up, so the entire royal family was promptly arrested and taken back to Paris. Fast forward to 21 January 1793 and King Louis gets one last request before his march to to Madame Guillotine and what does he ask for? A final taste of Brie de Meaux. Which is somewhat ironic seeing as it was the French revolutionary Joseph Lavallée (1747-1816) who said, "Brie, loved by the rich and the poor, preached equality before anyone dreamt it possible".

PS : And it wasn't just French kings who were enthusiastic about the cheese. A tart of brie is included in the 'Forme of Cury', the manuscript collection of recipes "compyled of þe mayster cokes of kyng Richard þe secund" (of England) written in about 1390:

Tart de Bry - Take a crust ynch depe in a trape [a deep oven-proof dish]. Take yolkes of ayren rawe [eggs] and chese ruayn [runny] and medle [mix] it and þe yolkes together. And do þereto powdor gynger, sugar, safron and salt. Do it in a trape, bake it, and serve it forth.

Ripe brie (ie ready to eat) really only keeps good for about a month, so Richard II's brie cheese might well have been an expensive diplomatic gift carried by express courier over from France (like the the huge wheels of parmesan sent by the Pope to Henry VIII during the wrangling about Henry's marriage to Catherine of Aragon). Alternatively, since the recipe is for a cooked tart, then the dish might have been specifically created to use up any of these expensive foreign cheeses that were unfortunately getting past their best-before date. At about the same time that the English royal cooks were dealing with these runny French cheeses, the French satirical poet Eustache Deschamps (1346–1406), who was also a diplomatic messenger travelling through Europe on behalf of Charles V of France, commented in exasperation about the politics of his homeland, but perhaps at the same time hinting at the success of cheesy diplomacy: "Brie de Meaux is the only good thing to come out of this country."

Poor Louis XVI - I really feel for him. I am really cheesed off at the moment because a recent health scare means lovely cheeses like Brie and lovely French red wine like Burgundy are totally verboten. Just reading about Louis and his meal at the inn made me long for a similar bit of Brie and a glass of Chateau Something-or-Other. Hard cheese! So, like Louis, when all seems lost, I shall recklessly binge on such delights - eaten with white, crusty French bread which is full of salt and also off the menu.

I wonder what the origin of "cheesed off" and "hard cheese" (meaning "rotten luck") is? The latter sounds like public-school-boy slang - "I say, Johnson Minor, hard cheese your landing in detention again!" 

PS Shakespeare only mentions cheese thirteen times in all his works. I knew of the reference to "Banbury cheese" in Merry Wives of Windsor, but have never come across such a cheese. I wonder if it is still made?

Banbury cheese was apparently a cow's milk cheese, yellow in colour, strongly flavoured and so highly regarded that it was often given as a gift (the damning indictments against Thomas Cromwell in 1540 record Banbury cheeses being amongst the presents/bribes he had received in 1533 and 1538). I don't think it is still made. A contempory of Shakespeare, Thomas Dawson, in his cookbook 'The Good Huswifes Handmaide for the Kitchin' (1594), has a recipe for a tart of Banbury cheese:

To make a tarte of Cheese
MAKE your tart, and then take Banberie Cheese, and pare away the outside of it, and cut the cleane cheese in small peeces and put them into the Tart, and when your Tart is full of Cheese: then put two handfuls of sugar into your Tart vpon your cheese, and cast in it fiue or sixe spoonfuls of Rosewater, and close it vp with a couer, and with a feather lay sweet molten Butter vpon it, and fine sugar, and bake it in a soft Ouen.

As in Shakespeare's 'Merry Wives of Windsor', Banbury cheese became something of a byword for anything unreasonably thin, sparse or mean, since it was typically made in very thin (at most 1 inch thick) rounds. John Marston's play 'Jack Drum's Entertainment' (c.1599/1600) has the line, "You are like a Banbury cheese, nothing but paring."

A wonderful posting there Meles on the history of Brie. It is a fabulous product and its enduring popularity down the ages is testament to that. At the other end of France, in the south, is Roquefort which has an almost equally long pedigree being one of the world's great blue cheeses. I was surprised, however, to discover that another French blue cheese 'Bresse Bleu' only dates from the second half of the 20th century. The name should, perhaps, have been a give away on that though. From the east of France, by Bourg-en-Bresse in the foothills of the Jura mountains, it has been described as being a cross between Brie and Roquefort. It's almost identical to Brie in texture but has a very mild blue cheese flavour derived from the use of mould from the Roquefort caves. It used to be quite popular in British supermarkets in the 1970s and 1980s but seems to have fallen out of favour in recent years and is damnably difficult to get hold of these days. I suppose those seeking blue cheese will want the stronger flavours of Stilton, Roquefort and Gorgonzola etc while those seeking Brie will want, well, Brie.

Temperance wrote:

I wonder what the origin of "cheesed off" and "hard cheese" (meaning "rotten luck") is? The latter sounds like public-school-boy slang - "I say, Johnson Minor, hard cheese your landing in detention again!" 

I've always assumed that the the term "hard cheese", as an allusion to an unwelcome or unpalatable course of events, derived literally from old, stale, dry and indigestible cheese, which is obviously unpleasant. Its use as a general indication of something being unsatisfactory seems to date to at least the early 19th century, for example from a play called 'The Tiger at Large', which was printed in a collection of plays called 'The Acting National Drama' (edited by Benjamin Webster, 1837) there's the line:
Jem: "His wages was too low. Don't you think a pound a month, and find one's self is hard cheese?"

Similarly there's "cheesed off" as in being exasperated or disgruntled in having to put up with something disagreable or unpalatable (like old cheese). According to the OED the first printed use of this phrase was in 1941, when a piece in the literary digest 'Penguin New Writing' included the following line:
"I’m browned off", announces [the narrator], "I’m cheesed."
Or at around the same time in the short novel 'The Nine Lives of Bill Nelson', by Gerald Kersh (1942):
"Two people, both cheesed off, are better than one."

Note how the first cited use appears alongside "browned off", and the OED entry for "browned off" features a quote from only a few years earlier in the 1938 novel, by James Curtis 'They Drive by Night' (made into a film the same year):
"What the hell had he got to be so browned off about? He ought to be feeling proper chirpy."
OED states that the etymology for both "cheesed off" and "browned off" are uncertain but suggests that browned off may have come from the British army in India during the early 20th century.

Then there's "cheesy" which again had negative connotations. But what's interesting is that since the early 19th century "cheese" had been used as a noun to mean something genuine, first-class, top-rate, or of impressive value, and later coming to be used for wealth and money generally. This meaning, which gradually seems to have shifted so that nowadays "cheesy" implies something brash, gaudy, hackneyed or lacking subtlety, seems to have come ultimately, via British India, from the Persian word chīz, meaning simply "thing".

Sir Henry Yule was a Scottish Orientalist who spent the majority of his adult life abroad and during his travels he co-authored with Arthur C. Burnell the now-infamous 'Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical and Discursive', (first published in 1886). One such word that appears in 'Hobson-Jobson' is "chiz", roughly translated to literally mean a "something" but which had apparently for a long time been commonly used amongst Anglo-Indians to describe something as genuine, real or good. In early 19th century London, the expression "the real thing" was in widespread use in order to describe something in a positive fashion (Dickens uses the expression) and likely once returnees from India were heard using the phrase "the real chiz", the two expressions merged and the unfamiliar and foreign "chiz" morphed into the more recognizable "cheese" - or it may be that the word "chiz" was misheard by native Englishmen and simply assumed to be "cheese" right from the very start.

The negative meaning of "cheesy" is given in 'Gore's Student Slang' (US, 1896) where it is is defined as "a vague term of depreciation, ... something cheap, inferior". Accordingly the modern derogatory usage may just be ironic reversal of the older British usage meaning that something was fine, valuable or showy.

Then there's the "the big cheese" specifically referring to a person who is powerful or important and seems to also derive from the 19th century meaning of cheese/chiz implying that the person being praised was good, first-rate, genuine or important. The first written reference to the "the big cheese" didn’t appear until the short story, 'The Unprofitable Servant' by 'O. Henry' (aka. William Sydney Porter) which was published in 1910, however in this instance it is not referring directly to a person, but that the person had bitten into the metaphorical "Big Cheese" and in doing so had acquired wealth and prestige:
"Del had crawled from some Tenth Avenue basement like a lean rat and had bitten his way into the Big Cheese... He had danced his way into fame in sixteen minutes."

"Big cheese" in the "important person" sense comes a little later such as this from 'The Olean Evening Times', New York, June 1922, in a piece written "In honour of the Mayor of Olean":
Foley, say there, Foley, with your hair of reddish hue
And your Irish smile, begorra!
Blarneyed them into meeting you.
The big mayor of Olean fair,
You're the big cheese on the scene.
Foley, tell us, Foley, is your city song
The Wearin of the Green?

Furthermore, like the usage of "cheese/chiz" having a positive meaning but then changing to having more negative connotations, 'Gore's Student Slang' (1896) mentioned above, has "cheese (n): an ignorant, stupid person". Accordingly by the first decades of the 20th century "the big cheese", while often used to describe the most important person in a group, could just as often be used in a derogatory sense in that many people who were considered to be "big cheeses" were actually self-important and contemptible individuals that held little respect of others.

Unlike the cheese/chiz origin it has alternatively been proposed that, when referring to a person, "the big cheese" may actually derive from the real foodstuff. In the early 20th century, particularly in the USA, giant wheels or blocks of cheese would sometimes be displayed as part of fund-raising activities, to then be ceremonially cut up by some important person. There are numerous instances of this occurring in the first few decades of the 20th century, which is about the time that the phrase "the big cheese" referring to an important (or self-important) person started to appear. For example in 1911, 'The Country Gentleman' reported:
"The cheese will be on exhibition at the National Dairy Show at Chicago next week. President Taft will visit the show the morning of Monday, October thirtieth, and after his address he will be invited to cut the big cheese, which will then be distributed in small lots to visitors at the show."

Talking about "hard cheese" ... there was supposedly an occasion when hard Edam cheeses were used in a 19th century naval battle when the supply of iron cannonballs ran out. I emphasise the 'supposedly' as I have failed to find much supporting evidence to confirm the truth of the matter. Online articles tell the story again and again, often with exactly the same words and little embellishments, but they mostly cannot even agree the date at which this happened: was it in 1841, 1847, 1851 or 1865?

Here's one account of the story, from 'The Science of Cheese' by Michael Tunick, Oxford University Press, 2014:

"In the days of sail, iron cannonballs were fired from close range at enemy ships to damage their wooden hulls. Edam's spherical shape inspired Commodore John H. Coe of the navy of Montevideo, Uruguay, to use the cheese as actual cannonballs when they ran out of ammunition while battling Admiral William Brown's force from Buenos Aires in 1841. The Edam was rock-hard, and the first lieutenant said that he broke the carving knife trying to cut it. One cheese shattered into dangerous splinters upon striking the main mast, another flew through a porthole and killled two men before fragmenting, and several others ripped through sails.

A 2009 episode of 'Mythbusters' television show attempted to show whether or not a cheese fired from a cannon at 30 feet (a typical distance in nineteenth century sea battles) could put a hole in a sail. The Edam they used was too soft and simply bounced off the sail without damaging it. A smoked Gouda, which was hard and brittle, fragmented upon exiting the cannon barrel. They also tried a hard Spanish goat cheese, Garrotxa (gar-ROH-chah, named after a county), which did puncture the sail: its success was credited to its combination of firmness and flexibility. They did not attempt to splinter wood (or kill anyone) and it is possible that the Edam on Coe's ship was capable of wreaking the havock reported."

The earliest reference to the story that I can find is this brief snippet from 'The Harbinger' (Vermont) of 11 December, 1847:

"Commodore Coe, of the Montevidian Navy, defeated Admiral Brown of the Buenos Ayrean Navy, in a naval battle, when he used Holland cheese for cannon balls."

Although written just a few years after the (likely) date of the actual event, it might of course still be somewhat fanciful and could even be the origin of all the subsequent retellings of the tale. However in 1841 commanders Coe and Brown did indeed fight a naval skirmish in the River Plate (as part of the Uruguayan Civil War), which incidentally was possibly the very last naval battle fought exclusively between sailing warships.

Another cheese with martial links is Valençay, a goat cheese from the Loire/Indre region which was traditionally made in a tall, pointed, four-sided pyramid shape. It takes its name from the small town of Valençay in the old province of Berry, which also hosts a splendid chateau.

In 1798 Napoleon had attempted to conquer Egypt. The campaign initially went very well with the French defeating a fearsome Mamluk army in the shadow of the pyramids however disaster fell when Nelson destroyed the French fleet in the Battle of the Nile. Napoleon returned to France in ignominy and this Egyptian humiliation haunted him despite his later successes across Europe. In 1803 with the financial assistance of Napoleon, who was now Emperor, the Chateau de Valençay was acquired by his wily foreign minister, Talleyrand. Talleyrand (who we've encountered above with his international cheese contest during the Congress of Vienna) intended to use the Chateau de Valençay as a venue for French gastronomic pomp in furtherance of his diplomatic endeavours; seducing foreign notables with luxurious food and wine and then cleverly extracting concessions from them.

Napoleon himself was famously indifferent to fine food but nevertheless he did attend several diplomatic dinners held at Valençay and on one of these occasions the cheese course featured the local speciality, the pyramid-shaped Valençay cheese. In the most popular version of the story, Napoleon, confronted with the pyramid-shaped reminder of his ignominious defeat in Egypt, leapt to his feet, drew his sword and sliced off the offending peak. An alternative version claims that Talleyrand shrewdly had the cheese decapitated before it was served, which sounds a bit more credible given that Talleyrand managed to keep his own head attached throughout one of the most murderous political eras in history. Either way this incident supposedly explains why Valençay is now always made in an unusual truncated pyramid shape.



Le fromage de Valençay - the distinctive blueish-grey rind is due to the traditional dusting of wood ash.

Further to comments about the origin of the English expressions "hard cheese" and "cheesed off", there's also an old French expression "manger le fromage" meaning to be disgruntled, as in this French cartoon depicting Napoléon Bonaparte grappling with a large St Helena cheese while in the background ships of the Royal Navy sail away leaving him in exile. The remote and largely barren island of St Helena is of course not in the slightest bit famous for its cheese.

Produced in Serbia, 60% donkey milk and 40% goats milk, Pule Cheese is the most expensive in the world:

Here is some cheese news: a welcome bit of normality in the midst of all the fear and horror.

Swiss Gruyère has won the World Cheese Championship yet again. Well done to that lovely holey Swiss delight.

Reading about this got me wondering whether Russian cheese had been banned from the competition -  which then had me pondering as to whether the Russians ate cheese at all. I have never heard of a Russian cheese. Cheese and vodka are not a likely combination. I found this interesting article and, when all the madness is over, I shall look out for Russian cheese - if anyone ever imports it ever again, that is.

I have no quarrel with Russia and its cheeses, or anything else Russian for that matter, least of all the Russian people. I detest only the Russian President and the nasty old men who are his flying monkeys. All madder than a box of frogs.


Russian Cheese

Cheese certainly isn't something one readily associates with Russia. That 'sausage cheese' (which looks rather like a German smoked cheeses) is the sort of thing one might think would have been on the shelves of a Soviet shop back in the day. A caricature I'm sure. It's interesting, however, just how many of those Russian cheeses are seemingly inspired by Emmental, Edam and Gouda. Probably something to do with the climate and the cows eating hay, fodder and silage for large parts of the year. This would, perhaps, suggest milk suitable for the making of hard, long-lasting cheeses.

Another country not immediately associated with cheese is Egypt. Yet it's one of the world's largest cheese-producing countries and possibly also the oldest. The Nile buffaloes along with cows, goats, sheep and camels provide milk from which are created soft, white cheeses similar to Greece's feta and halloumi. Indeed the word halloumi is related to 'halum' the Egyptian word for cheese. There are also some hard cheeses made such as rumi (roman) which as the name might suggest is related to pecorino.



(Egyptian feta - believed to have been made in the same way for 3,200 years)

Didn't Duke Forrest and Hawkeye Pierce give their names as Limburger and Camembert before disguising themselves as chaplains to avoid having to do "short arm inspection" on the way back to the USA

I don't see why Russia, with its diverse climate and agriculture, should be averse to making cheese - neighbouring Poland, Finland, Bulgaria and Romania all have long-standing cheese-making traditions. There is also a long tradition of using curd cheese (quark) and soured cream in Russian cuisine. However I'll readily admit I don't really know much about the history of cheese in Russia and I suspect there's a lot more to it. Nevertheless Russia, with its vast land area is as of 2019 (according to wiki), actually the seventh largest cheese producer in the world (by tonnage) out-producing many other more well-known cheese-making states, such as the UK, Canada, New Zealand or Ireland amongst others. However about 90% of this Russian cheese is apparently still generic mass market stuff.

Soviet cheese was apparently like post-war British 'national cheddar'; tasteless and rubbery, only more so. Post glasnost European cheeses were imported in great quantity with as much cheese being imported as was manufactured in Russia. Then with the annexation of the Crimea in 2014 the EU imposed sanctions and cheese imports dried up. This gave a massive boost to independent Russian cheese-makers albeit they were still mostly making Russian versions of foreign cheeses, such as gruyère, edam, gouda, emmental, brie, roquefort, feta, ricotta, dolcelatte, parmesan etc. This cheese production was further boosted by government subsidies and tax breaks, however I think most Russian cheese production is still generic mass-market stuff. Fancy locally-made cheese is probably too expensive for most Russians, while those wealthy enough to afford it likely view it as a second-rate substitute for the real thing that they can still readily obtain, either smuggled in or bought when they travel abroad. I would imagine that on-going sanctions will only further encourage Russia's drive for food independence while at the same time fostering a sort of food apartheid between those with money and those without.

Further to the above comments about the expression "it's the cheese" or "the real cheese", to denote eomething particularly good ... and also because it's very nearly Christmas ... there's this Christmas card from around 1900:



Granting everything
you please,
May Christmas day be -
"just the cheese"

As the pull-out paper knife reveals the slogan, Cheshire cheese, your dinner to ease, while you spend a merry Christmas, it's tempting to think this design was one of a series of cards sponsored by the Victorian equivalent of the Cheese Marketing Board, however I think it just assumes that everyone understood that Cheshire cheese was particularly good.

Priscilla's opening post to this thread mentioned her liking for Comté cheese, so she might be interested to know that King Charles is also partial to it.

His state visit to France has now been postponed but in the original plans he would tonight (27 March) have been attending a lavish state dinner in the famous Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles. This being France the menu for the banquet was reported in the French press about a week ago, along with the names of the chefs (all famous michelin-starred restaurateurs) and the suppliers of the produce used;

an entrée of fresh asparagus
the main dish of volaille de Bresse (chicken) with a truffle sauce
a cheese platter (three cheeses) accompanied by rhubarb jelly
tarte tatin (caramelised upside-down apple tart) embellished with dried fruit

The press release mentioned that one of the cheeses on the cheese platter was to be a 30-month-aged Comté, specifically included because Charles has said he particularly liked it. This titbit of info was duly picked up by the 'Daily Mail' who then made a great thing about this "vintage" Comté cheese as though it was something particularly special, even going so far as to mock-up a menu (in English) with this one cheese particularly highlighted,



... and despite a 30-month old Comté cheese being something you can readily buy in any French supermarket.



Nevertheless I'm sure the quality of all the dishes would would have have been of the very highest quality and the Comté in question was apparently to have been supplied by a renowned master cheesemonger Fromagerie Antony.

The other thing that struck me about the intended menu was how unadventurous it is: fresh asparagus, then chicken breast with a mushroom/truffle sauce, and finally apple tart. Again I'm sure it would all have been exquistely prepared, beautifully presented and would have tasted divine, but in essence they're all just classic dishes that you might get served in a simple brasserie or at home chez maman ... however I suspect that might well be because Charles is a notoriously fussy and unadventurous diner.

Anyway the French state visit is off for now, but what will their Majesties be served on Friday at the banquet in Schloss Bellevue during the State visit to Germany? There's bound to be some more cracking cheese; a smoked Rauchkäse perhaps or maybe a beer-washed Weißlacker, although those might be rather too pungent for Charles' taste.

The most delicate cheesecake I've ever had anywhere was at a little café near the Schloss Charlottenburg (about a mile to the west of the Bellevue and sometimes considered its twin). That was indeed a käsekuchen fit for a king. I know that in France they serve the cheese course before the dessert while in Britain the cheese course comes last. I don't know what the form is in Germany on this. A cheesecake would seem to fuse the 2 courses together and that would also seem to be a bit chez maman or heimelig for a state banquet.

If they were to serve a German cheese with a nod to Charles' Hanoverian forebears (indeed Sophie Charlotte of Charlottenburg fame was the younger sister of George I of Great Britain), then maybe a Harz cheese from the eponymous mountains near Brunswick might suit. Harzer, however, would not be a cheese one would normally consider fit for a king or even a bundespräsident being rather a hard cheese with a low fat content. But it does have a strong smell and taste so it could work as a (small) part of a cheeseboard I suppose.



(rounds of high-protein Harzer käse more popular with weight-lifters than gourmet chefs)

There are many French cheeses I would like to try but this is as far as possible a salt free zone and the really interestin cheese appear to be very salty...... don't the FRench get high blood pressure?

Or is all the rioting because of all these salty cheeses.......I digress.... but one does wonder if faulty diets has ever fomented problems..... extended digression, sorry.

I do wish cheese designers would stop messing sbout with additives..... add a bit of hot spice and it becomes Mexican..... and I bet many smoked cheese have never been within a mile of smoke. Having said that I quite like the cranberries in Wensleydale. One reason I like Comte is because it is consistent......probably all those rounds are aged about the same time. They all seem to taste the same (Though prices vary) however it is said the locals about the Jura mountain pastures can recognise the very alpine patch which was grazed to produce a batch.  Much as some can tell - or used to be able to tell recognise an oyster bed through flavour. This is a digressing sort of subject so will end there.

Priscilla wrote:

 I quite like the cranberries in Wensleydale...

Do you remember my story about trying to buy some of that nice Stilton cheese that has apricots bits in it? It was when visiting Bath, and I ventured into that very posh cheese shop (emporium, sorry) in the city centre. Never again! The snooty little shop-girl (who obviously thought I was Miss Bunting from Downton Abbey) told me: "If you want cheese with bits in it, you'll have to go to Morrisons."

The manageress overheard this exchange and, to her credit, she came over and apologised with obvious sincerity. She then ordered her young assistant purveyor of fine cheeses (sans bits) also to apologise  to me at once. I replied not to worry, because it would make a wonderful story to tell my friends, and that I'd even write a letter to the Times about the iniquity of asking for Stilton "with bits". At least in Bath.

I did get some in Morrison's - I'm surprised they have a branch in Bath, but they do. But the lower orders have to get their vittles from somewhere, I suppose, even in that very up-market and expensive city.

It was lovely cheese, too...