Re: Rhapsody in blue

[Guest guest]

Good article... is this available in the US?

Gordon S. wrote:

>

>

> Levy discovers with delight that an unpasteurised British blue

> is once more on cheesemongers' shelves

>

> Stich_piercing440.jpg

> Margaret and Tracey horne pierce the Stichelton to

> introduce the bacteria which create the blue veins. Photograph: Neal's

> Yard Dairy, all rights reserved

>

> In an issue of The Observer in 1989 I wrote the obituary of a cheese.

> We still eat loads of Stilton, especially at Christmas, but the last

> authentic Stilton was made that year. There had been an outbreak of

> food poisoning, with symptoms suggestive of a staphylococcus

> <http://www.textbookofbacteriology.net/staph.html> bacterial

> infection, and the incident was (probably wrongly) linked to raw-milk

> Stilton.

>

> In fact, samples of the last unpasteurised Stilton, made by Colston

> Basset <http://www.colstonbassettdairy.com/>, a farmers' co-operative

> (that today has only four members) turned out to be innocent - free of

> the staph bacterium. But Colston Basset panicked, and installed

> pasteurisation equipment. Thus real - buttery, complex - Stilton died.

>

> From the mid-1990s, when Stilton received Protected Designation of

> Origin <http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/foodqual/quali1_en.htm> status

> - the EC equivalent of the French /appellation contrôlée/, the

> remaining makers of Stilton contrived (connived, some would say) to

> make the use of pasteurised cows' milk part of the legal definition of

> Stilton. Now, nearly 20 years later, those who have never known the

> extraordinary taste and texture of pre-panic Colston Basset can buy a

> cheese almost exactly like what I remember.

>

> I look on this as an almost personal Christmas gift from the patron

> saint of British (and Irish) cheesemaking, Randolph Hodgson, of Neal's

> Yard Dairy <http://www.nealsyarddairy.co.uk/> - the man who, since

> 1979, has advised, encouraged, helped and sometimes saved the

> country's artisanal cheesemakers. He's joined forces with a

> 40-something New Yorker, Joe Schneider, who is making a unpasteurised

> cheese in Nottinghamshire called Stichelton

> <http://www.stichelton.co.uk/index.html>, so good, and so like

> authentic Stilton, that it restores part of (what Talleyrand said we

> could never capture of the past) /la douceur de vivre/. Legally,

> though, they cannot call an unpasteurised cheese Stilton.

>

> So they found the name Stichelton in the 13th century Lincoln Rolls -

> it just happens to be the name of a village associated with the

> origins of Stilton, another deserved poke in the eye for the seven

> firms that now make up the Stilton Cheese Association

> <http://www.stiltoncheese.com/UK/other/scma.cfm>.

>

> That is not to say that the existing Stiltons are bad - just that

> Stichelton is so much better. I bought large samples of it (about 250g

> each to make certain I had a cross-section of each cheese including

> the centre), and the two Stiltons that are commonly judged best,

> Colston Basset and Cropwell Bishop

> <http://www.cropwellbishopstilton.com/> - plus two other excellent

> blue cheeses made from cow's milk elsewhere, Louis Grubb's Co.

> Tipperary Cashel Blue <http://www.cashelblue.com/history.htm> and

> Strathdon Blue, made by Ruaridh Stone near Tain, Ross-shire.

>

> The Cropwell Bishop had a lovely, buttery texture, and the Colston

> Basset an attractive flavour that even in a blind tasting you'd

> recognise as Stilton. But both were one-dimensional compared with the

> Stichelton, the flavour of which lingered long after you'd swallowed

> it. It is creamy, rather than crumbly in texture, the bluing gives it

> a mild, un-peppery sensation that you feel at the back of the throat,

> and lots of floral overtones, both of aroma and taste, along with the

> very slightly salty savoury notes.

>

> According to my hero Harold McGee

> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_McGee>, there is a scientific

> reason for this, in that the many harmless bacteria present in raw

> milk, which are killed off by pasteurisation, contribute these complex

> flavour components to the finished cheese.

>

> Do you like cows' milk blue cheese, but dislike Stilton? If so you

> might well fancy the Cashel Blue, which, when fully ripe, can almost

> have the texture of a runny Brie; or the very creamy, characterful

> Strathdon Blue. This last is new to me, and I'd be glad if you know

> something more about it, or to hear your thoughts on Stilton in

> general. If you've tasted the Stichelton, what do you think of it - do

> you agree with Fort?

> <http://lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk/food/story/0,,2226873,00.html>

>

>