Cheese club

Check this rare science footage out from 1903 - cheese mites!

Zut alors! A french mountain cheese, Doux de Montagne, which literally translates as 'Soft of Mountain', or better put, Soft mountain cheese.

Those of you who've been following cheese club for some time will remember the pains we had classifying a mysterious alpine cheese a while ago.

This one did what it said on the tin, soft, milky with the fresh cut grass sent of alpine meadows, not unpleasantly soapy.

Apologies for the blatant supermarket plug on the wrapper.

Hello cheese clubbers,
Our last posting about the House of Cheese's cheese wedding cake was quite prophetic, as Cheese Club has just attended a wedding, with, you guessed it, a cheese wedding cake.
This delicious cake consisted of Cornish Yarg, mature cheddar, an unusual smoked Wednesleydale, and to top it off, one of Cheese Club's favourites PDO cheeses, a Forme D'Ambert.

All the cheese gave Cheese Club plenty of fuel for dancing the night away to early 90s rap classics, hence the picture of running man made from the aforementioned cheddar.

Hello cheese clubbers.
Sorry we've not updated for so long. On a recent trip to Tetbury we came across the absolutely super shop, The House of Cheese. The shop stocks a fantastic array of over 100 cheeses, and can even do these incredible cheese wedding cakes (pictured). Check them out!

Some hot news from one of our favourite sites: Cheddarvision.

We've been watching it mature for several months now, and soon it's going to be graded live.

For the full story click here, or ski straight to the action here.

Not everyone is keen on goat's cheese, but here we had two very different cheeses made form goat's milk.
The one that Lady Mel is pointing to is a goat's milk brie.

"I've been eating it myself", said our local cheese man - how's that for an endorsement?

It was very creamy and not unlike chevre in appearance, but the consistency and taste were much lighter.

The other cheese was hard, a little like lard in spreadability, and tasted like a mild idiazabal. Cheesey Rob said it tasted like a sheep's bum. Two points:

(a) it's made of goat's milk
(b) how does Cheesey Rob know what a sheep's bum tastes like?

Cheese as we know it is under threat!
Ofcom the advertising watchdogs want to remove junk food from TV advertising to protect kids health, and rightly so.

However, Ofcom has branded cheese a 'junk food'.

Cheese is not a junk food. It's a great source of vitamins and is good for bones and teeth. Like all foods, cheese should be enjoyed in moderation.

Real cheese is produced by craftsmen with care and attention using traditional methods. In this sense real cheese is no more a junk food than fine wine.

You can help to stop this madness - please sign this petition.

Last week, just as we were about to tuck into our Somerset blue brie, someone spotted this skeletal but smiley face staring back at us from the rind.

Amazing, isn't it?

The strange thing is, this isn't the first time it's happened, as those of you who've browsed The Cheese Club Archives will know.
Check out this distinguished Roman profile we found in a morsel of cheddar!

We were going to tell you all about Somerset Blue Brie. But instead we saw something else: a face in the cheese.

It's not the first time it's happened to us either - amazing pictures to follow oh so very soon...

Cheese Club

My, it has been a cheesey month. So why the jaffa cakes? Well...

Someone said supposedly jaffa cakes are made from apricots. All you have to do is look at the ingredients to roughly bed that rumour. But then inevitably someone asked: is a jaffa cake is a cake or a biscuit?

Biscuit derives from french for 'twice baked' - first to cook it, secondly at a higher temperature to dry it out and crisp it. Cakes are only baked once.

VAT is charged on biscuits, but not on cake, as the taxman deems biscuits a luxury.
So, what makes a biscuit a biscuit and a cake a cake is both it's cooking process and its current fiscal classification.

Establish the state of jaffa cakes on these two points and you can end the uncertainty once and for all, then maybe we can get on with eating cheese without the need to talk.

Cerney is "a full-cream goats' cheese dusted with oak ash and sea salt" from Gloucestershire, England. It's also a PDO cheese.

We'd found Cerney hard to come by, so were quite excited by this one. We thought it would be hard, flavoursome, and unusual. It actually reminded us of certain spreadable cheeses named after certain cities in the States, that we won't mention. Even the shape could have been like one of these had been rolled in the sea salt and ash. There was however a slight apple-like texture to the cheese.

It's definitely a spreader or a toaster, not a cheeseboarder, and for a small minority it was the best yet. But for most of us, we didn't hate Cerney, and it will probably be one of our most memorable cheeses just because it was so restrained.

PS. A big hello to everyone in Primula City, Dairylea County, USA

Beaufort, Beenleigh Blue, Casciotta D'Urbino, Cornish Brie, Curado, Forme D'Ambert, Grandma Singleton's Strong Lancashire, Gouda, Idiazabal, Katy's Lavender, Lanark Blue, Llangloffan, Manchego, Mimolette Francais, Morbier, Mysterious mountain breakfast cheese, Oassau-Iraty, Pecorino Romano, Raclette, Reblochon, Ribblesdale Blue, Roncal, Roquefort, Sage Derby, Sainte-Maure de Touraine, Sbrinz, Somerset Blue, Stinking Bishop, West Harlech, Windsor Red, Yarg, Yorkshire Blue

For tasting notes, visit the Visit the Cheese club archives.