Everybody say cheese

The millennia-long tradition of cheesemaking in Britain and Ireland, having weathered many storms, is as vigorous as ever thanks to the great cheese renaissance. Ned Palmer takes a dairy-driven tour

- Ned Palmer

THE tradition of cheesemaking in Great Britain and Ireland stretches back at least 6,000 years, from the cheesemakers who fed the builders of Stonehenge to the 16th-century exporters of Cheshire and the Victorian celebrants of a Christmas Stilton. This noble tradition, however, nearly died out. In Ireland, Anglo-Norman cheese imperialism wiped out dairying for centuries and the industrial revolution, combined with the rise of cheaper, factory-made cheese, had, by the early 1970s, almost done for artisanal cheesemaking in both nations.

Happily, the late 1970s saw the beginning of the great cheese renaissance and we now live in a golden age of indigenous cheesemaking. The French have brought to the world the notion of terroir—that wines and cheeses gain much of their character from the soil, climate and culture of the places they are made —and we, too, have a terroir of cheese. In fact, it is entirely possible to carry out a grand cheese tour of Great Britain and Ireland from the comfort of your dining table.

The South-West