Red Leicester cheese:
1) Description
 Made with 100% English milk.
Red Leicester is a traditional, creamy, hard cheese made from cow's milk, it gets its red colouring from Annatto, a flavourless vegetable extract from a South American plant. A good Red Leicester has a firm body and a close, flaky texture. The flavour is delicately sweet. This cheese can be eaten young, but it should ideally be left to mature for six to nine months.
2) History
The cheese was originally made on farms in Leicestershire with milk that was surplus. It was originally coloured with carrot or beet juice. Its lush colour was largely responsible for the cheese's popularity - especially in the Victorian period, during which it became very popular.
Cheddar:
1) Description
Made with 100% English milk:
Cheddar cheese is the most popular cheese, with a nutty yet slightly sharp, full flavour and firm body.
2) History
The name comes from part of the cheese making process where the curds are turned by hand to allow whey to drain away. This action is called "cheddaring the curd".
In the fifteenth century, it was stored in Somerset's Cheddar Gorge caves to mature.
3) Full Range
Mild cheddar
Delicately flavoured Mild Cheddar has a smooth creamy texture and tastes delicious with some fresh English apple juice.
Mild Cheddar can be white or coloured
Mature cheddar
Carefully matured under controlled conditions for nine to twelve months, Mature Cheddar has a firm, silky texture and a wonderfully full flavour.
Mature Cheddar can be white or coloured.
Cheshire:
1) Description
 Made with 100% English milk
Cheshire cheese is a slightly crumbly and silky textured cheese with a full bodied, fresh, flavour.
Its unique flavour derives from salt deposits in nearby pasturelands.
This Coloured Cheshire does not differ in flavour from its sister White Cheshire. The only difference is the attractive colouring caused by an ancient vegetable dye called Annatto.
2) History
Cheshire cheese is Britain's oldest variety, dating back to before the Romans settled in Cheshire and North Shropshire, when the area was inhabited by the Celts.
The Doomsday Book held a record of Norman women making Cheshire cheese and, in the sixteenth century, the historian, John Speed, pronounced Cheshire to be the best cheese in Europe.
Cheshire cheese has continued to be popular, especially with the French, Americans and Canadians.
Double Gloucester:
1) Description
Double Gloucester has a smooth, buttery texture with a clean, creamy, mellow flavour. Usually matured for around three or four months, Double Gloucester is pale orange in colour and has a smooth, creamy texture.
2) History
Double Gloucester was traditionally made as a large wheel with a thick rind to withstand annual cheese rolling ceremonies - when cheeses were rolled down the hills in Gloucestershire to protect the grazing rights. It was originally coloured with carrot juice or saffron. These days, cheese makers use a vegetable dye called annatto.
The adjective "double" refers to the fact that the traditional recipe for the cheese relies upon the milk from both morning and evening milkings.
Wensleydale
1) Description
Wensleydale has a supple, crumbly, moist texture. The flavour suggests wild honey balanced with a fresh acidity.
At that time, Wensleydale was almost always blue with the white 'un-blue' variety almost unknown.
2) History
Wensleydale cheese was first made by French Cistercian monks from the Roquefort region settled in Wensleydale. They built a monastery at Fors, but some years later the monks moved to Jervaulx in Lower Wensleydale.
In the 1990s, sales had fallen so low that production was at risk of being suspended. Fortunately, inspiration struck when the popular Wallace and Gromit short, A Close Shave, had Wallace mention Wensleydale as being a particularly favorite cheese.
Wensleydale was also mentioned in their Academy Award-nominated first short A Grand Day Out. Animator Nick Park chose it solely because it had a good name that would be interesting to animate, unaware of the financial difficulties. The company contacted Aardman Animations about a licence for a special brand of "Wallace and Gromit Wensleydale," which proved to be an enormous success. |
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