What is cheddar cheese?
Edward Bottone is a food and lifestyle journalist, a former chef and restaurateur, TV and radio presenter, and culinary educator.
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Cheddar, a firm, smooth-textured, whole-milk cheese, ranges in color from pale yellow-white to deep yellow-orange, and in taste from mild and sweet when fresh to sharp and tangy when aged. Widely produced in a vast range of quality the cheese takes its name from the town of Cheddar in Somersetshire, England where the method of cheddaring, and the cheese, was first made. Today, cheese made with milk from Somerset, Devon, Dorset and Cornwall qualifies as West Country Farmhouse cheddar, a protected designation or origin (PDO) in the European Union. (Traditionally milk from within 48Km/30 miles of Wells Cathedral.) There are a number of caves in the southwest of England that have the ideal humidity and temperature for this process.
The curds and whey are separated when rennet is introduced under ideal humidity and temperature for the process. The curds are kneaded with salt, cut in cubes or slabs, and the whey is drained off. This cutting and stacking method is called cheddaring, after which they are aged. Cheddar is ivory in color; orange cheddar has been colored with annatto seed. Medium cheddars usually age for 60 days, Sharp sits for 9 moths, Extra Mature cheddar must be aged 15 months. There is a world of difference between a proper English farmhouse cheddar, and what is found in plastic wrapped bricks in the supermarket.
There are a vast variety of cheese referred to as cheddar, and cheddar adjacent like Longhorn, Colby and Jack. After mozzarella (no doubt, thanks to the proliferation of pizza), cheddar is the most popular cheese in the US. Wisconsin (“America’s Dairyland”) produces the most, with cheddar producers from New York and Vermont having place name value. Black wax and cloth bound aged cheeses are still made by artisanal cheesemakers, and by some larger producers sold as “limited editions.”
In America, unsurprisingly the quest for the biggest big cheese started early. During his time in the Whitehouse seventh President Andrew Jackson made a 1,400 pound cheese the center piece of an open house party. In 1989, members of the Federation of American Cheese-makers in Oregon created a behemoth cheddar weighing nearly 57, 000 pounds. The Big Cheese, indeed.
