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    Cheddar Gorge: A Book of English Cheeses
    Cheddar Gorge: A Book of English Cheeses
    Cheddar Gorge: A Book of English Cheeses
    Ebook162 pages2 hours

    Cheddar Gorge: A Book of English Cheeses

    By John Squire and Ernest H. Shepard

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    Where can you read about a monstrous cheese big enough to hold a girl of 13 inside? Or that the invention of the bicycle directly, and poorly, impacted sales of cheddar? Or that some of the first cheese makers hid gold coins inside their wheels of dairy as a sales tool?

    Brethren, the writer calls you this because he hopes that you are ‘cheese-minded’ like himself.

    This classic and charming book, a timeless love letter to English cheeses was first published in 1937, newly rediscovered and charmingly illustrated by EH Shepard. It is a treasure trove of wonderful anecdotes including the tale of the monstrous cheese big enough to hold a 13-year-old inside, the Stilton that purred like a cat and the famous cheesemaker in Manchester who selected which Cheshire cheese to sell based on where the mice had been nibbling ‘as they were the best judges of a good cheese’.

    Sir John Squire, a notable journalist of the time, collected together ‘a galaxy of talent’, with the aim of making this ‘one of the most delightful and entertaining gift books that has ever been published’. Each of the distinguished ten contributors champion an individual cheese, setting forward their passionate and compelling arguments, celebrating the differences and delights of each type. Through their explorations, the chequered beauties of the English landscape unfolds.

    It will certainly whet the appetite for English cheese, for that is ultimately what matters most, as after all ‘the only way to learn about cheese is to eat it.’

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins UK
    Release dateOct 18, 2018
    ISBN9780008314309
    Author

    Ernest H. Shepard

    E.H.Shepard was born in London in 1879. He was an artist, illustrator and cartoonist and went on to draw the original decorations to accompany Milne’s classic stories, earning him the name ‘the man who drew Pooh’.

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      Book preview

      Cheddar Gorge - John Squire

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      Copyright

      HarperCollinsPublishers

      1 London Bridge Street

      London SE1 9GF

      www.harpercollins.co.uk

      First published by Collins 1937

      This edition HarperCollinsPublishers 2018

      FIRST EDITION

      © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1937, 2018

      Illustrations © Ernest H. Shepard 1937, 2018

      Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2018

      A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

      The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

      Find out about HarperCollins and the environment at

      www.harpercollins.co.uk/green

      Source ISBN: 9780008314293

      Ebook Edition © October 2018 ISBN: 9780008314309

      Version: 2018-09-03

      Contents

      Cover

      Title Page

      Copyright

      Publisher’s Note

      I – Introduction – Sir John Squire

      II – Stilton – Sir John Squire

      III – Interlude by the Artist – Ernest H. Shepard

      IV – Cheddar – Horace Annesley Vachell

      V – Cheshire – Vyvyan Holland

      VI – Double Gloucester – Osbert Burdett

      VII – Leicester – Henry Stevens

      VIII – Wensleydale – Ambrose Heath

      IX – Caerphilly – Ernest Oldmeadow

      X – Dunlop – Moray M’Laren

      XI – Irish Cheeses – Oliver St. J. Gogarty

      XII – Blue Vinny – André L. Simon

      Notes

      Publisher’s Acknowledgements

      Biography of Sir John Squire

      About the Publisher

      Publisher’s Note

      ‘Brethren, the writer calls you this because he hopes that you are cheese-minded like himself, but if not he hopes that he may call you brother-initiates.’

      Blessed are indeed the cheesemakers, and especially English cheesemakers. This classic and charming book, a timeless love letter to English cheeses – originally published in 1937 but out of print since the 1940s – was rediscovered in the HarperCollins archive in Glasgow earlier this year, enchanting everyone who has encountered it since.

      The genesis for the original publication came from a correspondence in The Times in 1935, when a Frenchman declared he couldn’t source any Stilton, drawing public attention to a gradual attrition of English cheesemaking by foreign invasion, and a general English ignorance and indifference to locally produced cheeses.

      In response, Sir John Squire, a notable journalist of the time, and editor of The London Mercury, collected together ‘a galaxy of talent’, with the aim of making this ‘one of the most delightful and entertaining gift books that has ever been published’. Each distinguished contributor, including such notables as Vyvyan Holland, Ernest Oldmeadow, André Simon and Horace Vachell, was tasked with championing an individual cheese, setting forward their own passionate and compelling arguments in honour of the ten varieties, celebrating the differences and the delights of each type. They then visited the district concerned, learning in old farms and homesteads the secrets of quality and production, plundering literature and local lore, as well as setting forth the history and culture behind the taste, writing freshly and vividly of what they saw.

      Through their explorations, the chequered beauties of the English landscape unfold. From the ribbed hills of Dorset (home of the rare Blue Vinny), through Berkeley Vale and Cheddar Gorge, to the rich pastures of Wensleydale in Yorkshire. Scotland, too, is featured with the Ayrshire plains where Dunlop cheese is made (nearly extinct at the time of original publication), as well as the ancient town of Caerphilly in Wales, and Ireland through the Irish cheeses, of which Dr Oliver Gogarty writes so well.

      That the book is charmingly illustrated by E. H. Shepard, more especially known as the illustrator for Winnie-the-Pooh, ‘is in itself a signpost to pleasure’. It has been said that this book gave him material for some of his very best work. He also toured the countryside in search of local colour, returning with more information and anecdotes to add to the store already collected.

      This captivating book is a treasure trove of wonderful and amusing anecdotes, including the tale of the monstrous cheese big enough to hold a thirteen-year-old inside, the Stilton that purred like a cat and the fact that early cheesemakers randomly hid gold coins inside wheels of cheese as a sales tool. And there’s the famous cheesemaker in Manchester who used to select which Cheshire to sell based on where the mice had been nibbling ‘as they were the best judges of a good cheese’. Some Cheddars in the seventeenth century were the Birkin bags of their day – so prized that they were bespoken by members of the court, long before they were even made. It also covers the specific impact that the invention of the bicycle had on the decline of Cheddar production, as labourers returned home for their meatloaf lunch rather than hole up on a roadside with a hunk of bread and cheese.

      The contributors recommend appropriate accompaniments in food and wine, although it must be noted that of course ‘bad cheese asks butter to eat with it; good cheese asks none’. The book also sets out the recipe for the ultimate cheese on toast (here) – so exciting, so radical, and so secret that it had to be created behind a screen when in company, with sham extra ingredients set on the table to befuddle any enquiring minds, so that the recipe couldn’t be guessed or stolen and shared more widely.

      When the book was first published, British cheeses were facing similar challenges to today’s cheese market – threats posed by ‘soulless’ mass production and standardisation, as well as the impact of cheaper grazing on the quality of the final product. The small, the quiet, the local and traditional were being absorbed into the machine in pursuit of ‘the rage for cheapness’, and resulting in Cheddar that tasted of ‘mild soap’. The subsequent renaissance of English cheese-producing can in part be attributed to this intriguing book’s original publication, and the resultant public light it shed on many threatened British cheese-making traditions.

      At the time, English cheese was ‘without honour in its own country and amongst its own kin. Consequently, it is without honour abroad. If we don’t celebrate it both at home and abroad it will cease to be. The world will be the poorer. Our entertainment to visitors will be feebler … supply will only come from demand, and there will be no demand unless the public is stirred from its present apathy and brought to realise the mechanical monotony of its present diet.’ Now, cheese is bought by over 98 per cent of British households, and we consume around 700,000 tonnes of it a year at home, in restaurants and in processed food. Excluding fromage frais and cottage cheese, this is equivalent to about 10kg per person per year, or 27g per person per day.

      We are truly a nation of cheese enthusiasts, now more than ever. There was no British cheese export market at the time of the original publication of Cheddar Gorge – other than some Cheshire cheese. Fast forward eighty years, and the value of British cheese exports in 2017 has soared to £615 million, up 23 per cent on the previous year, according to HMRC data. There are in fact now more than 900 different kinds of cheese produced in the UK, outnumbering those produced in France. It’s extraordinary to think that in 1937 ‘our great local cheeses [were] dying. Literature by preserving the memory and giving the praise of good things, ends by becoming their saviour.’

      This fascinating book will certainly whet the appetite for British cheese, for that is ultimately what matters most, as, after all, ‘the only way to learn about cheese is to eat it.’

      I

      Introduction

      By Sir John Squire

      This book arose out of a correspondence in The Times at the end of 1935 and the beginning of 1936. M. Th. Rousseau, a French connoisseur, wrote to complain that when he visited England he could not get Stilton – the waiters said it was out of season. Many people wrote to explain that perhaps it was out of season, and that in most decent London restaurants Stilton, when in condition, could be obtained, if only after pressure. But the correspondence did attract attention to the neglect of English cheese generally, and to the gradual attrition of English cheeses by foreign invasion and native indifference and ignorance.

      Now, no citizen of the world would wish to decry foreign cheeses, or foreign food either. As I write these lines I have just come back from a holiday in the mountains above Lake Como (staying with Italian friends, spaghetti, cheese and wine). In order to get to my destination I had to go to Como, which has silks and a lovely Cathedral, and wait for two hours in an out-of-doors café within sight of the pier. Lunch, as it was noon, was indicated, and I sat down, after two years’ absence from the Continent, metaphorically tucking a napkin into my neck below a non-existent beard, and looking forward to a really Italian table d’hôte, with all the dishes lingering on mind and tongue, with languishing vowels.

      What did I find? Apparently they had become resigned to the coarser kind of German, American and English visitors, who haven’t the sense to adapt their food to climate or surroundings. ‘Coelum non animam mutant’:1 the sky may change but the set rules and regulations about filling the stomach do not.

      The first course, as it were hors d’œuvres, consisted of eggs and bacon; and that at lunch-time, under a baking noon and an Italian sky, with blue lake and mountains all around. The second was ‘Mixed Grill’; and there was a great deal to follow. The mixed grill contained liver, bacon, kidneys and sausages, and was accompanied by thick fingers of fried potatoes. Fat women and young men were eating them all around me, terrified, apparently, lest they should shrivel. I ordered an omelette and a bottle of white Italian wine, and tried to keep my eyes off all those gluttons. Just as I was finishing with cheese, a tall thin Englishman and a flat-chested wife, wiping their brows, came and sat down at the next table to me; they looked at the menu and the beads multiplied on their brows. I couldn’t help speaking. I said: ‘Excuse me, sir, but I expect you find the lunch too much for you.’

      ‘I should think I do, in this climate,’ he replied.

      ‘If I may say so,’ I went on, ‘you’d better follow my example and have an omelette, with perhaps a little fruit to follow.’ He grunted assent and did so.

      But he wasn’t really a citizen of the world. No sooner had he stopped grumbling about these foreigners supplying us with hot sausages at an Italian August lunch (and the supply simply must have responded to a demand) than he began complaining about the surroundings. A little rusty tram clattered by. ‘Look at that tram,’ he exclaimed to his dutiful wife, ‘absolutely filthy. I consider it a disgrace to a place like this.’ The word ‘insular’ rose, unspoken, to my lips.

      And the word ‘insular’ cuts both ways. Most English people, living on this island, away from the Continent and full of compromises, will regard foreigners

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