When the Government Banned Cheese and How the Industry Bounced Back
Cheesemaking in Britain has had a turbulent history. Patrick Galbraith gets his crackers out and explores the state of the cheese industry in the country today
It’s hard to believe but during the Second World War it was only legal to make one type of regulation Cheddar in Britain – making any other sort of cheese was banned. Sixty years on, however, the British cheese industry is flying. There are over 750 different types, some of them ancient and others very new, and prizes for cheesemaking are hotly contested.
Patrick sets off for Norfolk to visit Mrs Temple, an environmentally-conscious dairy farmer and renowned cheesemaker. She shows him around the dairy and then takes him to see her Brown Swiss cattle that graze in the water meadow on their farm.
Amazingly, the Temples use waste whey from the cheesemaking process to fuel their biodigester, which provides power for four hundred houses.
After visiting Mrs Temple, Patrick pops by the Walsingham Farm Shop to pick up some of Mrs Temple’s famous Binham Blue, which is their best selling cheese by some way. Then he drives back to London and rings up Angus Birditt, the author of A Portrait of British Cheese: A celebration of artistry, regionality, and recipes. Angus has travelled the country talking to cheesemakers, and he believes that to understand cheese is to understand rural Britain.
You can order Angus’ book here:
You can buy Mrs Temple’s cheese here:
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