A few weeks back I was fortunate enough to spend a couple of evenings with Peterpan. A good chin wag and putting the world to rights was in order
I had brought over with me from the UK a selection of cheeses, which I thought that our Peterpan would enjoy, plus a bottle of vintage port. Suffice to say, they were. Here he is with a very contented look over his face
The cheeses included a couple of cheddars, a traditional stilton, a creamy stilton and a cheshire crumbly cheese. During the course of the evening we got around to discussing the merits of cheese and what is the best cheese.
The creamy stilton and the cheshire that I had brought over were rubbish with very little taste and should have been only used for cooking. Yet I must say that I have also had good ones of these two, and I feel that there is so much variation in the cheesemaking process.
In my own honest opinion there is nothing that can beat a good chedder. I enjoy a Stilton, an occasional bit of camonbert, Danish Blue but chedder to me is my No 1. The best of these, again in my opinion, is a Canadian Vintage Chedder, it has a great 'bite' and 'tang' to it and when I can get hold of it, it is my chedder of choice. However this is not to often as only occasionally does my local Asda have it, and would necessitate a trip to one of the dedicated cheese shops, which is over 25 miles away, but they have over 400 varieties of cheese there. Trouble is when I go there I tend to buy to much and usually some has to get binned.
Cheese has to breathe for a while out of the fridge before being eaten, otherwise it loses much of its taste imho. We seem to have got this right and the port and cheese after the meal that Peterpan had cooked made for a perfect evening.
So the question is, what is your own favorite type of cheese. Do you like a strong cheese or mild, or are you one of the processed cheese fans and know little about them.