Wigmore
Soft unpasturised sheeps cheese, made in Berkshire and bought from Neal’s Yard Dairy.
Our slice of this cheese has a thick wrinkled white and yellow rind. Inside, the paste is slippery and silky, melting onto the paper in an oozy sticky mass. It’s salty! There are hints of bacon to this – smokey and savoury. It’s milky and fudgy, and there’s a hint of hay about the rind. I love this cheese; it’s rich and salty and soft and feels wonderfully indulgent.
Hawes Wensleydale
Hard-ish cows milk cheese from North Yorkshire, bought from Neal’s Yard Dairy.
This slab of crumbly cheese has a pastel orange interior. The whiter rind looks like it’s been wrapped in cloth, but I get no strings in my mouth when I eat some of it; instead, there’s a surprising (and very tasty) bright juicyness. This fruity taste carries to the rest of the cheese. It’s smooth and sweet – hints of honey, maybe – and orangy. Cheese-scoffing chum says that it tastes of lemon curd, or maybe tango – sweetly citrus in flavour. Texture-wise, this cheese lives on the border between hard and soft; it’s solid enough, but wonderfully moist and creamy.
Cheesy Woofer: Finlay says GROMPF to this cheese.
Strathdon Blue
Soft blue cow’s milk cheese from Ross-shire in far-north Scotland, again bought from Neal’s Yard Dairy.
This is a slice of pale soft cheese – slightly orange towards the rind, and paler yellow in the middle. It’s scattered all over with large pockets of pretty, powdery green mould. Cheese-scoffing chum claims that it tastes soapy around the edges; I hadn’t noticed this before, but I do now that he mentions it. This takes a smidge of the shine from this cheese, for me. It’s still good, though – spicy and creamy and salty, with a hint of mushroom.