CHEESE AND ALE
CHEESEMAKERS to look out for...
sustainable, so the couple decided to add value by turning the milk into cheese. They joined forces with a local family called the Horrells who were making Yarg, first created by Alan and Jenny Gray in the early 1980s (Yarg, in case you hadn’t noticed, being their name spelled backwards). Eventually both the Grays and the Horrells retired, so all Yarg is now made at Pengreep.
While Ben works with their mixed herd of Ayreshire, Jersey and Friesian cows to ensure top-notch milk, Catherine and her team handcraft the cheese. They use their own milk, plus milk from 12 neighbouring farms. The nettle casing is a revival of a
CATHERINE MEAD, LYNHER DAIRIES, TRURO
www.lynherdairies.co.uk Cheeses: Cornish Yarg and Wild Garlic Yarg Catherine Mead used to work in London in advertising but in the 1990s decided to move with her husband Ben back to his family’s dairy farm Cornwall. Being small the farm was not
CAROLINE & WILL ATKINSON, HILL FARM DAIRY, SOMERSET
www.hillfarmdairy.co.uk Cheeses: Stawley & Wellesley Caroline first developed her passion for cheese as a child when visiting markets in rural France while on holiday with her family. She later worked in marketing for Covent Garden soups and noticed that at trade shows she always gravitated to the cheese tents. Realising her future had to be cheese, Caroline took a job at Neal’s Yard Dairy in London, then at the Bath farm of Mary Holbrook, one of Britain’s finest cheesemakers. In 2008, Caroline and her husband Will, a lawyer, took the plunge and moved to Hill Farm in Somerset to establish a herd of milking goats with a view to making a soft goats’ cheese. The following year the couple proudly produced their first
recipe that dates back to the 16th century when it was
realized that the enzymes in nettles helped the cheesemaking process. Every nettle leaf is individually picked in May, and wrapped around the freshly
formed ivory cheese by hand. The cheeses are then matured for four weeks, producing a slightly crumbly cheese that’s fresh and bright.
cheese from unpasteurised milk from their own goats. They named it Stawley, after their local village. As the Atkinsons use just their own milk, they only make cheese when their 100 goats are producing, that’s from March, when they start kidding, to December. The cheeses are ready to eat at around four weeks old. Caroline is currently developing a washed-rind cheese, also made with the raw milk of her own herd. It’s called Wellesley after the Duke who took his title from nearby Wellington. “It’s great to be able to create something tangible that you can show at the end of the day,” says Caroline. “Walking the 100 metres to the dairy certainly beats catching the tube to work every day. I feel extremely lucky to be making a career out of what I love.”
TOM CALVER, WESTCOMBE DAIRY, SOMERSET
www.westcombedairy.com Cheeses: Westcombe Unpasteurised Mature Cheddar, Westcombe Red, Brickellwood, Ducketts Caerphilly, Wedmore, Smoked Wedmore, Westcombe Ricotta Richard Calver has been farming dairy cows for the past 45 years at Westcombe Farm in Somerset, where cheddar has been made since the 1890s. However his son Tom decided that rather than make cheese he’d become a chef so on leaving school trained at Leith’s in London. But after a spell of cooking lunches for bankers (including Bob Diamond), the green fields of Somerset beckoned again, so Tom headed back home. Tom’s father Richard, meanwhile, had dramatically changed the direction of the business. When he took over the cheesemaking at Westcombe in the 1990s the dairy had been producing commercial-style block cheese. But Richard decided to return to making Somerset cheddar the artisan way, using raw milk from the farm’s own herds, cheddaring by hand, and maturing his cloth-bound round cheeses for 12 to 18 months. Using his knowledge of the restaurant world Tom took on the task of getting chefs and delis to buy it. At the same time, he dedicated himself to perfecting Westcombe’s cheeses by working for a spell at Neal’s Yard Dairy, and visiting top cheesemakers, and in 2008 took over as the dairy’s cheesemaker. “I loved the challenge of constantly seeking the Holy Grail of flavour,” he says. “We tend to see milk as a commodity. In fact, like wine, it’s the taste of a particular area, or terroir. Even milk from different fields is different.” Although Westcombe is best known for its traditional farmhouse cheddars, it also makes a Caerphilly, having taken over production from Chris Duckett, whose family made Somerset Caerphilly for three generations.
12 | THE WESTCOUNTRY FOODLOVER
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