CHEESE PLEASE


How hard can it be? Okay, maybe I’m doing the industry a disservice; perhaps I should be extolling its virtues and toeing the line of the reverential 21st century eating experience: ‘The soft, bloomy rind yields to whispers of coriander with perceptible toothpaste.’ But this is Scotland, and we’re talking about


Scottish cheese, not the great vineyards of Burgundy. Waxing lyrical about our very own cheeses – which for many years basically meant Scottish cheddar – has always smacked of embar- rassing hyperbole. Thankfully today things have moved on, and


we have much to shout about. Tastes have been changed for ever by foreign travel, imports and a revolution in the kitchen, and from the Orkneys to Campbeltown, Plockton to Fife, and Ardes- ier to Arran, artisan cheese making is thriving as never before. With consumers now focused on issues like flavour and provenance, quantity is being matched by the quality, with cheesemak- ers producing an enormous range of tastes and styles. Raw or pasteurised, cow’s milk, sheep, goat or buffalo, all manner of cheeses are now being successfully produced in Scotland. The growth in the number of outlets for top-


quality food, from delicatessens to food halls at out of town destination stores such as Bruar,


Cheese please L


et’s be totally honest about this, cheese is nothing but preserved milk. I mean, you just wring out the water and add some salt.


Brodie and Blackford, has coincided with a new generation of hoteliers and restaurateurs who have placed enormous emphasis on using locally-sourced artisan products. It’s a combina- tion which has provided Scottish cheesemakers with a ready-made market, while the growth of cheesemonger


Ian Mellis also indicates a


Cow’s milk, sheep, goat or buffalo, all manner of artisan cheeses are now being made in Scotland WORDS RORY STONE


‘Tastes have been changed for ever by foreign travel, imports and a revolution in the kitchen’


growing market for top-quality produce. Scottish cheesemakers have also benefited


from a growing interest in food in the rest of Britain. Our diverse range of cheeses have been eagerly seized upon by retailers south of the border. It’s not just mass-market cheeses such as the Seriously Strong Cheddar produced by the Caledonian Cheese Company which have made it on to shelves in London, Paris and Milan, small-scale cheeses such as Caboc, Strathkin- ness and the whisky-washed Bishop Kennedy have also been impressing consumers. But then Scotland’s success in producing top


cheeses shouldn’t come as a complete surprise because while


some cheesemaking skills


migrated north, most ancient Scots had a house cow for milk and cheese. In the Highlands, a soft cheese called Crowdie (also known as gruth in Gaelic) was inspired by a recipe imported into Scotland by the marauding Vikings, while the Ross-shire cheese Caboc is made from cows’ milk, rolled into small logs and covered in toasted oats. The growing realisation that cheese produc-


tion can be attempted on a very small scale has seen an explosion in interest, with Kathy and David Biss at the West Highland Dairy near Plockton running useful starter courses that have proved very popular. And the future for our industry? It revolves


around small scale artisan producers like the incredible Isle of Mull cheddar, the indefatigable Lanark Blue, and the unbelievably good Ainster. Although we are aware that we are dependent upon a steady supply of milk from a dairy sector that remains under pressure, the outlook is still rosy for a genuine Scottish success story.


WWW.SCOTTISHFIELD.CO.UK 127


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