A Cheese Box For July.
 New idea. As a way of putting the spotlight on different cheeses, we're going to offer a different box every month, each with a contrasting selection drawn from our 100+ list. To start things off, here's our July Cheese Box.
Westcombe Cheddar is one of the three ultra-traditional Somerset Cheddars. If you want to know what real cheddar tastes like, here's your chance. St Endellion is a cream-enriched soft, brie-style cheese made on the north Cornish coast, and Bath Blue is our only organic blue - made by Bath Soft Cheese (lovely stuff - we used to send it up to Twickenham Stadium for their big games). Finally, something a bit more unusual - and a cheese I have unashamedly championed since I first tried it: Smoked Woolsery is the smoked version of Annette Lee's excellent firm goats' cheese. It featured on the menu at my daughter's wedding, which ought to tell you something!
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 Selling It: That's One Thing.
But Can We Make Cheese?
I'd thought for a while that we ought to have a go at cheesemaking. What better way to get a deeper insight into the product? So when an email arrived from Helen Osborn advertising a three-day cheesemaking course at Duchy College I jumped at it. June 15th was a (yet another) gorgeous day; James wound the VW up to 45mph and we struck out along the A30, determined cheese-making expressions on our faces.
By 9am on the first morning there were eight of us gathered in a classroom at the College: a Somerset farmer, a food safety officer, four of Geoff's colleagues, plus James and I. Under the expert eyes of Helen and Geoff House, from Davidstow Creamery, the course began.
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 Day 1 was a bit of a challenge to those of us with only hazy memories of 'O' Level chemistry, but then again learning was rather the point of it all - and I'm sure some of it went in. Day 2 saw the fun start as Helen handed us a recipe and pointed towards two vats, each containing 100 litres of raw (unpasteurised) milk. Stir, stir, heat, stir. Add starter cultures, wait, heat, stir. And all the time we're checking the acidity to make sure it's all on track. A rennet substitute goes in and slowly the milk is coagulating - separating into curds and whey. It's happening! Heat, stir, wait.
Eventually the whey is drained off and we have piles of tiny curd pieces, about the size of a pea. 'Cheddaring' is next - forming blocks. Cut, stack, wait. Milled into chip-sized pieces with the texture of chicken breast, our curd is put into a mould, then into a press where it stays overnight. Long wait.
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 Day 3 saw the pay-off for all that stirring and waiting as our 10kg cheddar emerged from it's mould (wow: we made that!) Now all we have to do is wait a year for it to mature ... Another group produced a similar-sized Cheshire; some Ricotta and Mozzarella was made too.
I already respected our cheesemakers, but I think what I take away from the course is a deeper appreciation of the exacting nature of the process, the concentration and sheer attention to detail which is required in order to control the process. After all, those umpteen cheeses we sell are all made from roughly the same ingredients, and the basic process (coagulate, drain, wait) is common to all cheeses. Numerous tiny differences in the recipes used give you the differences which make cheese so fascinating.
Will these mongers turn into makers? Well, no, I doubt it: we're happy to leave that to the experts. But it was a fascinating few days! If you're interested, contact Helen Osborn via the Food Innovation Service at Duchy College.
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