Harters
(John Hartley - a culinary patriot eating & cooking in Northwest England)
61
Tricky question, but bear with me.
Had you just asked which I thought was the best Red Leicester, I would have quickly replied “Sparkenhoe”. It is everything you want from the cheese. A sort of middle strength, nice and nutty. A proper farmhouse cheese.
Then if youd asked what’s the second. I’d have said “Hmmmm. Not sure, but look out for Red Fox”. The fox is the county’s symbol, by the way. It’s aged more than most Leicesters and has soem crunchy crystals.
Now you come up with this Claxstone. And I’ve never heard of it. So I Googled and found it’s made at the Long Clawson dairy. Now, Long Clawson are one of the small number of producers of Blue Stilton - not my favourite blue cheese but they do make a cracker of a version. So, knowing how good they are at making cheese, I’d reckon they’d do a good job with a Leicester. I must look out for it
Thank you! I have learnt a few things about English cheese from this reply of yours alone. I have never heard of or seen any of the names you mention. More the reason to keep an eye out for names of good producers in the future.
I eat this cheese when they haven’t got anything new and/or interesting but I think the label is new. It is most probably the same cheese with a new label.
There are several stages of ‘oldness’, I think this one is the oldest, tastiest and most expensive. And you are right that it is a good travel companion. I often bring it with me on trips as it keeps so well.
Oops, accidently pasted the wrong second pic of the French cheese. Supposed to be sliced and without the label.
My 2 new ones this week. The brie is OK, I prefer the one from last week. Both are unpasteurised but the other one was a lot more flavourful.
Move over Délice de Bourgogne. Good bye! Brillat Savarin makes Délice de Bourgogne look like a block of pure butter. I don’t care fore the added truffle bits but the cheesemonger didn’t have the plain kind.
Out of curiousity I looked up how much it costs in the US… saw the prices $20 and $30 (in Canada, and US respectively). Wow. I paid eur.10 for it. I understand there are taxes and other import charges North Americans must pay.
OK my term now, we have a cheese lunch today. First cheese is the Swiss Gruyère 2 years réserve: I really like this cheese, subtle but a lot of favours.
The second cheese is Comté from Marcel Petite, Gruyère style of Cheese. When buying we tried a 24 months and a 36 months. We both voted for the 3 years old. It has a much stronger character and more taste: fruity and nutty.
We visited the Wensleydale factory a year or so ago, and I never saw so much tasting going on in my life! If anyone is ever in the Yorkshire Dales, do stop there to look around. Lots of shops in the UK sell what they call, ‘Wensleydale,’ but the real one has a certain thing on the label that tells one it’s really made at the authentic factory.
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Harters
(John Hartley - a culinary patriot eating & cooking in Northwest England)
73
It’s labelled “Yorkshire Wensleydale” and has European Union PGI status.
Cool piccies, Naf! Is it the 3 year old Comté? Looks like it.
I used to eat Gruyère, Appenzeller, Comté, Beaufort etc and the likes but I just stopped. Probably because I didn’t try any of the aged stuff. Would love too. Cheesemongers have big, huge wheels of them but I don’t remember seeing really old Comté. I shall have another look next time I visit the cheesemonger.
Btw, the bread is rye sourdough, made by the bakery under the windmill seen in pic below. There they mill grains and bakes own breads and pastries. Both the asparagus farm and the windmill bakery are about 15mins cycling from my house (I don’t live in the countryside but it’s really close to my house).
Zuriga and Harters, oneday I will find the real Yorkshire Wensleydale cheese. I don’t remember seeing the actual word Yorkshire and an official seal of PGI on it.
Btw, Lidl here has flavoured “Wensleydale” on sale this week. Haven’t been there to check the fine print of the cheese.
I just looked up my encyclopedia on cheese, comté AOC is graded from 1-20. The best note are the 15-20/20 and they got a green label, with a sticker around the wheel.
The minimum to get the appellation of Comté note needs to be 12/20, those Comté between 12-14 will get a brown label.
Those cheese with quality inferior than 12/20 cannot be called Comté but sell it as Gruyère.
Found this in So Cal. I’ve been to their Seattle shop and really enjoyed a few of their offerings. This was slightly dry and very nutty. We enjoyed it with a cocktail.
