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🧀 Cheese: Humanity’s Edible Accident 🧀

How monks, mould, and ripening truckles gave us one of Britain’s finest traditions.

Cheese was, for millennia, humanity’s greatest accident, and then Alexander Fleming’s fortuitous discovery of penicillin snatched that honour away in 1928. To be fair, antibiotics have saved millions of lives since then, and I’m not sure cheese can, with any degree of integrity, make that kind of claim. Though, I suppose, mould gets kudos for both penicillin and at least some of the cheeses. Unlike penicillin, though, there is no documented history of the day cheese was discovered. Imagine some ancient shepherd leaves some milk out in the sun and forgets about it. A few days later he returns to find it has separated into a sour liquid and suspicious-looking, lumpy bits. He’d have to be very hungry and more than a little bit reckless, but he tries a lump–and Boom! Cheese is born. Since that glorious accident, humanity has spent centuries perfecting the art of letting milk go bad in very particular, and delicious, ways.

Blessed Are The Cheesemakers Who Moulded History

Fun fact: Cheshire is the oldest named cheese in Britain. Cheshire cheese was likely being made in Roman times, from 79 AD on, at the site of the Roman army camp of Deva Victrix that eventually became the city of Chester. The world-renowned Cheddar cheese was first nurtured in the caves of Cheddar Gorge, Somerset, in the 12th century. By the Middle Ages, Britain’s monasteries had cornered the cheese market, along with beer, wool, and many other markets. Monks, being jolly disciplined, well educated, and very enterprising chaps with plenty of time, mould spores, and cool cellars, became the original research department for dairy innovation. They developed techniques and, more importantly, wrote down their recipes. They were medieval food scientists, only with chanting and dirty habits. British monasteries turned out great quantities of now-famous cheeses. Some of our best cheeses, however, had to wait a while before being created. A farmer’s wife and cheesemaker, Frances Pawlett from rural Leicestershire, invented the blue-veined Stilton in the 1720s. It soon became popular in the village of Stilton, sold exclusively at The Bell Inn, a coaching inn 2 or 3 days ride north of London on the Great North Road. 

Britain’s Dairy Medley

Britain today boasts over 700 named cheeses, which means you could eat a new one every day for nearly two years! Here are some of the highlights:

• Cheshire: Britain’s oldest recorded cheese. Crumbly, tangy, and a touch salty—solid, ancient, and dependable. It’s one of Britain’s cheeseboard staples, and pairs well with sweet red grapes.

• Lancashire: The friendliest cheese. Buttery, mild, and designed for sandwiches or melting on toast. It’s comfort food disguised as cheese, and mild enough for anyone to love.

• Cheddar: The heavyweight champion of the world (of cheese), still made in Somerset caves. Creamy, sharp, and globally imitated. Perfect grated on cottage pie and browned before serving.

• Stilton: Blue, crumbly, and tangy; it’s the softest, creamiest, mouldiest yumminess. Best in small doses, or as crumbles. Great as an after-dinner cheeseboard nibble.

• Red Leicester: A cheerful mild-tasting wedge with a curious orange, annatto-extract hue. Great for Welsh Rarebit—melted on toast with a sprinkle of Lee & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce.

• Wensleydale: Fresh, mild, and slightly crumbly, with a clean, subtly tangy taste. Best enjoyed with a fresh pot of tea, a handful of Jacobs Cream Crackers, and Wallace & Gromit on the telly.

• Double Gloucester: Strong, rich, and so iconic that they roll it down Cooper’s Hill while complete lunatics tumble downhill after it. Another cheeseboard favourite.

• Derby: The most overlooked British cheese. Smooth, mellow, and gentle, Derby rarely attracts attention … unless, of course, it’s Sage Derby, the green-marbled icon that shouts ‘Eat Me!’

Each of these cheeses carries centuries of tradition in every flavourful nibble.

Cheese As An Enduring Pastime

A bit like chess (though much tastier), cheese is simple in principle—curd, press, age—but almost infinitely varied in practice. The tiniest tweaks in milk, climate, or mould produce wildly different results. It’s culinary chaos theory. And much like quantum gravity, the joy of cheese defies explanation. Why does Stilton taste so majestically pungent, while Derby is so meek and mild? What little miracle creates the sublime flavours of Cheddar, from mild, to medium, and sharp? What recipe would bring out the best in half-a-pound of soft, fresh Slipcote? And how come a wedge of Red Leicester looks like a slice of traffic cone? Nobody knows. And the monks aren’t talking. All of the mysterious and esoteric practices with all the moulds and bacteria add to the fascination with the flavours that have stood the test of time. And can anyone tell me why a delightful word like truckle went out of fashion? 

Why We Love It So Much

Cheese can be as humble as a slab of Cheddar in a sandwich, with some butter and Branston pickle, served with a pint of Guinness. Or it can be as magnificent as a perfectly ripe Stilton, served on a delicate water biscuit with a touch of fig jam, and a glass of tawny port. It’s a gourmet platter. It’s the centrepiece of a picnic spread. It’s nibbles on game night. Or it’s the instant snack, and the perfect trophy from a fridge-raid, at any time, day or night. Everyone has their favourite, and that might even change depending on the situation or mood. Now, I love wordplay about ‘mould’ as much as the next person, and there must be just as many puns with ‘culture’ in the context of cheese, but I think this ramble is already cheesy enough. Having said that, cheese is both comfort food and cultural artifact. And you don’t have to be particularly cultured to enjoy it. It pairs with wine, with crackers, with a mug of tea, or with nothing at all. Cheese can be whatever you want it to be, and all without the haughty pretentiousness that seems to accompany the appreciation of wine. Nobody should have to talk about mouthfeel or notes of blackberry when it comes to cheese. And nobody should be telling you whether to have red or white to accompany your chosen cheesy comestibles. We can have an uncomplicated and informal relationship with cheese, and it never stops rewarding us for our devotion.

Have You, In Fact, Got Any Cheese Here At All?  

So next time you’re peckish for a good old wedge of British cheese, spare a thought for all those erstwhile cheesemakers in their chilly, musty cellars, perfecting the craft and documenting everything for generations to come—without them, we would never have known the bewildering joy of a well-stocked cheese emporium.

Don’t forget Westgate College Cheese Week, presented by the Catering School’s first-year students, the second week in October. Tickets £25 from the Porters’ Lodge westgatecollege.org.uk

*If you didn’t spot the Monty Python’s Flying Circus references, then feel free to come to Westgate College for evening classes starting in November—“Something Completely Different” with Prof. Nesbit.