THE CHEESEBOARD
It’s just not Christmas without a cheeseboard. It is the unwritten rule along with roasting the right bird – and matching sauce – and trying very hard to spruce up those little round green veg, love them or hate them they are just part of what makes the big day so special!
Thankfully most of us (allergies aside) really do love a cheese. I recently worked with Raymond Blanc (apologies for the name drop) and he said “did you know that the UK now produces more different types of cheese than the French?”. I was actually quite shocked by that but it does make sense as we do consume quite a bit of it, in fact cheese is bought by over 98% of British households and we have over 750 named British cheeses produced in the UK! Many of these cheeses are now beating the French on blind tastings (don’t ever quote this to a French person unless you want to swiftly end the evening…).
It really doesn’t hurt that cheese can be eaten as a starter, main or dessert, the gang here at Earth & Ocean can certainly testify to that. It is just so amazingly versatile, from baking to grilling or just eaten at room temperature, it has to one of the most forgiving foods.
What we find really exciting is just how many of these independent cheese producers are out there making their cheese with utter devotion, creating a huge variety of cheeses right across the country, all playing their huge part in the British Food Revolution. Take a moment to look at Wildes Cheese, who have created their own range of cheeses rather than reproduce other cheeses and have created their own recipes using the amazing milk from a single herd of cows that graze the fields of Rye, East Sussex, sounds heavenly!
Of course a cheeseboard is not a cheeseboard without a glass of something special to go along with it. We stumbled across The White Castle Vineyard, near the market towns of Monmouth and Abervavenny in Wales, who make a delightful fortified wine. It can’t be called Port, because it’s not from the Douro in Portugal, but this wine is made in the same way as a Late Bottled Vintage Port, so definitely a fantastic match to your cheeseboard.
The big question is: “how many cheeses should be on the perfect cheeseboard?”. This is a great question and thankfully, not too hard to answer! Some fine dining establishments offer up to 50 different types of cheese on their boards, which is a bit much really, the problem with too many cheeses on a cheese board is some of them drying out before you can properly enjoy them. Basically what you are looking for is balance, so you want a combination of blue, hard, soft, washed rind (stinky), something with sheeps milk and / or something with goats milk.
Your choice of what you eat WITH the cheese is one that has started many heated arguments, it is such a huge topic that is very personal and far too broad to go into today! Your big decisions are: bread (what bread?) or crackers (what crackers?), fruit (what fruit?), nuts (what nuts?), I mean the possibilities are endless! There just isn’t a correct answer apart from, just add what YOU like to the board and your guests will just have to deal with it (hopefully they are so full after lunch that you get to enjoy them the next day!). Here is a nice little cheeseboard idea that we put together to give you some inspiration.
However many cheeses you decide to adorn your cheeseboard with, the best news is that we are so lucky that we really don’t have to look too far to find a the most fabulous selection of world class delicious cheeses, right here on our doorstep…
