Understand Cheddar Better: Presented by a Cheesemonger, Producer & Cheese Expert

As a cheese professional, attending industry-related events, (including conferences, seminars, and competitions) is crucial to my job. It’s also kind of a blast.  I began attending the American Cheese Society Conferences in 2004, and I try to never miss one. I’ve also participated in Culture magazine’s Counter Culture workshops and competed in the Cheesemonger Invitational.  That was all back before the COVID-19 Pandemic, of course. Things have been a bit different since March of 2020, but as with other aspects of life, we must adapt. 

So, on a recent Thursday (my regular day off from Potash Markets), I found myself on the living room sofa, preparing to Zoom in for another virtual cheese event and tasting.  I have participated in a handful of cheese-related virtual events in the past year or so, and all have been fun and informative.  This one, Understanding Cheddar Better was to be co-hosted by Jasper Hill Creamery, Greensboro, Vt., and author and cheesemonger Gordon Edgar.  This session was a “must-see” for me because I am a little bit kinky about Cheddar. Ubiquitous (in America and Britain), Cheddar is an easy cheese to overlook or dismiss offhandedly.  Yes, Cheddar can be a pedestrian cheese, but more often it is delightful and often surprising. There is a great deal of variety in the cheeses that fall under the Cheddar heading, and that’s before you even think about applying smoke or lacing them with peppers, herbs, or bacon bits. 

Two Selections of Cheddar Cheese

Perhaps no one knows this better than Gordon. He dug deep into the lore, the science, and the history of Cheddar cheese for his 2015 book Cheddar, A Journey to the Heart of America’s Most Iconic Cheese.  That book, (along with my earlier introductions to clothbound Cheddars from England, and their upstart counterparts here in the States) turned me into a Cheddarhead. It doesn’t hurt that I work in a grocery store in Chicago, where Cheddar is right up there with brie as a cherished and approachable cheese.  Our store’s proximity to Wisconsin is part of this dynamic, as the dairy state, and Vermont are both places where Cheddar rules among makers and consumers.

So, when Gordon posted about co-hosting this tasting session, I was all over it.

The Official Selections

·         Montgomery’s Farmhouse Cheddar, UK

·         Cabot Clothbound Cheddar, Cabot and Jasper Hill collaboration, Vermont

·         Cabot Vintage Choice Two-Year Aged Cheddar

·         Conundrum Raw Milk Cheddar, Jasper Hill

·         Vault No. 5 Cave-Aged Cheddar, Jasper Hill

Our Selections

Now you have to be fast in registering for these events, and I was fast enough for registration, but not for purchasing the tasting kit. I registered for the link only, and I would have to assemble my own collection of Cheddars.  I had to juggle a bit, but I did have some Montgomery’s on hand, along with BleuMont Cheddar from BleuMont Cheese, in Wisconsin.  These are both clothbound cheddars. I also included a five-year Wisconsin Cheddar from Hook’s, a two-year from Grafton Village Creamery, Vermont, and a Wisconsin cheese reflective of what I refer to as a “newfangled American Cheddar.”

The Role of Cheddar

My teenage son joined me in a tasting event, as he has on a couple of other occasions. We put together a nice board with some accouterments, set it on the living room coffee table, and linked in as Lilith Spencer of Jasper Hill was making introductions.  Katy Fenwick, a British Cheddar expert, and educator, who has worked with Neal’s Yard Dairy, London, also participated in the presentation. She noted that Cheddar has always been an innovator, “conforming itself to consumer needs” and shifting from farm production to cottage-industry and then to a factory setting.  Someone pointed to evidence of Cheddar-type cheeses dating back to the 12th century. Cheddar is the name of a village in the West Country of England, and the cheese gained its name because its type was marketed near there. A classic Vermont Cheddar has a different flavor profile from a Wisconsin cheddar, Gordon pointed out.  There was discussion about the color of Cheddar and how the varying traditions of using annatto (a natural seed-based colorant that produces orange hues) may have begun as an attempt to pass off a low-quality cheese as a top-quality Cheddar.

Tasting & Talk

We started by tasting the Montgomery’s, which is made on a farm in the West Country of England, largely with traditional making and aging methods. The hosts described the earthy, and peppery flavors that might be surprising for someone who had never tasted a cheese that gains its maturity while wrapped in cloth.  We went on to try the more familiar flavors of the Cabot Vintage (presumably aged in a chilled environment while wrapped in vacuumed plastic film) and discussed the flavors of the cheeses matured at the Cellars (a joint operation of Jasper Hill) and noted their similarities and differences to the previous cheeses, both in terms of methods of production and flavor.

There was talk about how cheddar is made--the cutting of the curd, the stacking and unstacking (known as cheddaring) of curd mats that allows for the draining of the whey (the liquid that is separated from milk in the cheesemaking process), and the fact that Cheddar is a relatively acidic cheese, sometimes called sharp in the US. The discussion also turned to the idea that Cheddar, like all cheese, grew from the necessity of preserving food that would otherwise spoil, and how that drove cheddar-making toward efficiencies, but now there is “value in inefficiency” as Gordon noted, in the pursuit of authenticity and deliciousness.

 The speakers also touched the tip of the iceberg of cheddar lore concerning things like mammoth cheddars and the politics and international trade history of Cheddar. While the English Farmhouse Cheddar is a PDO cheese, steeped in history and usually made by generational companies like Montgomery’s, Katy pointed out that there have been some new entrants to the field as well, citing the makers of a cheese called Pitchfork, which was first made in 2018.

The Enduring Popularity of Cheddar

So, back at the coffee table, my son and I were pretty well stuffed at the end of the program and stashed the leftovers in the fridge. Then a funny thing happened. A couple of days later (July 4th weekend,  believe) we retrieved those bits of cheddar for some friends and, hmm….they ate every last morsel.

Cheddar is like that. It’s easy to love, and we might say it is easy to understand on one level.  But it is also a much more complex family of cheese when you take the time to learn more about it. Along those lines, I would highly recommend that you try any cheddar cheese coming from Jasper Hill Creamery and the Cellars. Ask your local cheesemonger about these and other cheddars of all types. And watch for my upcoming piece on how to select Cheddars to create an all-Cheddar cheese board.

Gordon Edgar’s Cheddar as well his earlier book Cheesemonger, A Life on the Wedge are informative and fun to read. If you have the chance to meet fellow Cheese Professor contributor Gordon Edgar, you should. You will likely never meet anyone else whose interests in cheese, punk rock, politics, and baseball, are so thoroughly developed and informed. 

You can take an online class with Katy Fenwick

And if you are not familiar with the cheeses of Neal’s Yard Dairy, and their fantastic London retail stores, well, you really have something magical to look forward to.