The Greasy Spoon | Food & Culture

Rollright Cheese

 

 

The Rollright Stones, photograph by Luke Honey 

 

"As Long Compton thou canst not see, King of England thou shalt not be!

Rise up stick and stand still stone, For King of England thou shalt be none;

Thou and thy men hoar stones shall be,

And I myself an elder tree!” 

 

Those of you who know Oxfordshire may have visited the mysterious Rollright Stones, a complex of Neolithic monuments found near the village of Long Compton on the undulating hills close to the Warwickshire border. I’ve been there with Mrs Aitch on a Midsummer’s Eve (pagans and their ilk very much in evidence) and the stones, truly, have a weird- if slightly sinister- atmosphere.

 

The Rollrights, Midsummer’s Eve, 2016, photograph by Luke Honey

 

The legend goes like this: One day a King was riding across the county with his army when he came across the local witch, Old Mother Shipton, who cackled:

"Seven long strides thou shalt take

And if Long Compton thou canst see

King of England thou shalt be!”

The king took seven steps forward but couldn’t see Long Compton. The witch immediately turned him and his men into stone, and for some inexplicable reason, herself into an elder tree. And so they all remained. But when the local church clock strikes midnight- at the witching hour- the stones come to life, and holding hands, they dance in a circle.

It’s also supposed to be impossible to count the stones. I must remember to try this next time we visit.

 

 

Anyway, I’m glad to report that the stones now have their very own Rollright cheese produced by David Jowett and Antony Curnow at the King Stone Dairy, King Stone Farm, Chipping Norton. The King Stone can be found on the farm’s land.

Last Christmas, Mrs Aitch queued up at Paxon & Whitfield to get her hands on some. It’s a handmade soft washed-rind cheese, in the manner of Reblochon. And genuinely fabulous it is too. It’s a magnificent cheese. Buttery, tangy, with a decidedly nutty taste (so much so, I thought, mistakenly, that it might have had walnuts in it).

Rollright has only been with us since 2015 and has already won several awards including these two: Artisan Cheese Awards, 2016 (Supreme Champion) and Great British Cheese Awards (Best Soft Cheese). 

Rollright Cheese is available online from the following stockists.

 

 

Shorrocks Cheese and the Lancashire Bomb

 

 

 

 

 

Mrs Aitch discovered the Lancashire Bomb a year or two ago, and it's now become very much a part of our Christmas. It's the most delicious creamy, strongly flavoured cheese. Invented by the Shorrock family about twenty five years ago. Hand-made too, and as they say on their website:

 

It has proven to be a great success in the North of England and is spreading South rapidly by word of mouth due to the great taste and originality of the product. 

Visitors from the South have been sampling and buying the cheese bombs to take home and share with family and friends so they can experience the sensational Shorrock's hand made Lancashire Bombs. 

The Lancashire Bombs are matured over two years creating a very creamy and full flavoured taste and texture. In addition to this original Lancashire Bomb Shorrock's now produce a variety of different flavours, this includes the Vintage Gold which is an extra year matured.

 

The cheese is wrapped in a black wax, with a loop, and looks very much like one of those old-fashioned fuse bombs cartoon characters used to throw: think Guy Fawkes, or sinister men with waxed moustaches, black capes and fedoras. More importantly, the cheese is utterly delicious, with a strong flavour and creamy texture. 

I think it's terribly important to support enterprising local suppliers, such as Shorrocks. So please get on to their website right now and order in some cheese immediately. And if you don't fancy a Lancashire Bomb, there's a wide range of similar bombs to choose from: The Red Onion, The Cracked Black Pepper, The Garlic and Herb, The Hot Chilli, The Whisky and The Green Olive.

 

 

 

And some sad news...

 

Oskie, our beloved little 17 year old Burmese cat, is no more. The End happened suddenly. An urgent trip to the vet, brief hope ("it's probably a balance problem") and then that heart-wrenching call: "we need to make a decision immediately." Kidney failure, neurological problems, various complications and a reluctance on my part to go through the similar trauma we experienced almost exactly last year to the day; and you know that it's time to make that tough, but necessary, decision you've been dreading for the last few years.

And so, on a beautiful, golden afternoon in late November, poor Venetia dragged away from work, we made that final trip to the vet. Struggling to keep a stiff upper lip (and failing miserably), our lovely vet in tears, the whole wretched business was over in a jiffy.

Oskie was my first proper pet- and my first love; I won't deny that I was besotted. There had been a goldfish (won at the Gerrard's Cross fair), a neglected tortoise and a gaggle of miserable stick insects, but that was about it: my parents weren't very keen on animals. Maybe that's why I wasn't prepared for the sporadic gobbets of genuine, deeply felt grief that hit me the following week.

I'm fine now, of course I am, and looking forward, when the time is right, to the new additions to our cat and dog dynasty (Mrs Aitch is keen on a black pug, I like the idea of a whippet, and another Burmese kitten) but Oskie was something special- highly intelligent, elegant, affectionate and pretty. Sometimes, when she sat at the right angle, and cocked her head she looked like something straight from the pages of Beatrix Potter.

She had been through all my bachelor ups and downs, girlfriends good and bad, and survived the famous Battersea boiler explosion (neglected servicing on my part). A feisty little number too: she thought nothing of having a go at intruders: a scraggy town fox, four times her size; Polish builders (don't think she liked the smell of their rancid roll-ups) and poor old Valerie, our long suffering cleaner, who left notes saying 'that she had fed the rat'.  

I wasn't even sure if I wanted to write about this, let alone tack it on to a post about cheese, for blogging is a strange compromise between privacy and self-promotion, but as I've been writing the Greasy Spoon for so long now, I suspect that it would have been false if I didn't. Anyway, I don't think Oskie would have minded. She would have sniffed that Lancashire Bomb, turned her nose up at it nonchalantly, and strolled away.

 

 

Tartiflette

 

The ski-ing season's upon us, and chalet food makes me think of Tartiflette. Tartiflette's a French dish from the Savoie region, which originated in the Aravis valley, the home of Reblochon cheese. Curiously, it was invented as late as the 1980's in an attempt to boost sales, and then heavily promoted by the relevant trade unions to increase employment in the area. 

This is how you make it: First fry some chopped smoked bacon, and sliced onions for about five minutes in your favourite pan. If you've got some goose fat, use that.

Next, slice up some waxy potatoes, and arrange them in a bottom of a dish, which you've previously greased with the goose fat. It might also be a good plan to rub half a garlic clove over the dish as well- this will give the Tartiflette a subtle garlicky flavour, without killing off all the other flavours in the dish. Season the potatoes with salt and pepper, and then cover them with the cooked bacon and onions. 

Add a layer of Reblochon cheese which you have cut into small cubes. It would be worth you while to track down some authentic Reblochon- as this gives the dish its authentic edge. Try you local deli, and see if they stock it. If they don't it's always worth making a fuss- in the nicest possible way of course, and they may be able to get some in for you. 

Finally, it's a simple matter of adding another layer of sliced potatoes, some more cheese, and finishing off the thing with a carton of double cream, unsalted butter and more salt and pepper. Bake in the oven for over an hour, until the cheesy cream topping goes brown and crusty.

 

 

Fondue

 

 

Back in the late 1960's, our Swiss au pair brought back a funky fondue set. I remember it well: a beaten copper affair, raised on a nifty wrought iron stand.

I happen to think that the best fondues use authentic cheese recipes. Recently, however, a bad, mad, and dangerous tendency has crept in for sickly, over rich chocolate fondues with cake, strawberries, sweeties, and the like. Please avoid them at all costs.

Here's how to make a genuine Swiss cheese fondue: grate ½ llb of Swiss cheese (Emmenthaler is ideal), and ½ llb of Gruyère into a pan. Start melting the cheese on a medium heat. It's important not to boil the cheese, over-stir it, or let it get cold. All these things will encourage separation and stringing.

Carefully stir in two tablespoons of flour or cornstarch. Again, the flour will help to prevent separation. Add a tablespoon of dry mustard.

When the cheese, flour and mustard have melted down, add a cup of dry white wine, a generous dash of Kirsch, a squeeze of lemon juice, and some grated nutmeg. That's it.

You then dip in hunks of fresh white bread into the cheese sauce. Traditionally, if you loose your bread in the cheese, you're supposed to pay a forfeit. Having seen The Stepford Wives, I can imagine the sort of saucy things our parents got up to forty years ago, though I stress that in our family, the forfeit was always a bottle of Kirsch.

 

Related articles

The Savoy's Cream Cheese and Marmite Sandwiches

Devil Sauce

Fondue au Fromage

Swiss Cheese

Fond of a "fondue?"

The London best: Fondue restaurants

Fon-Do and Fon-Don'ts

Potted Stilton

 

 

More Christmas food from The Greasy Spoon. Stilton is a famous English blue cheese only made in the counties of Derbyshire, Leicestershire, and Nottinghamshire. It has a creamy, crumbly taste which improves with age. It's also quite similar to the Danish Blue.

To make Potted Stilton, you need to mash some up with a third of its weight of unsalted butter. Next add a pinch of cayenne pepper, and a bit of nutmeg. Add some port, and carry on mashing. If it gets too runny, add a good hard cheese to thicken it up.

Pack the cheese mixture into a ramekin dish, and bung it in the 'fridge. It will make an interesting alternative to the cheese course, and is highly, highly suitable for this time of year. Drink it with port- if you're extremely fortunate, something like a Fonseca '63. I'm lucky enough to have a few bottles of the stuff left, but recent tastings have been a bit disappointing. It was probably at its peak about five years ago, so need to drink it up fast. Life is so darn hard.