A Landscape You Can Taste

Britain has some of the most varied grazing in Europe, and its cheeses show it. Chalk downland, salt marsh, upland pasture and heavy clay all produce different milk, which is why a cheese made thirty miles away can taste like an entirely different food. Add breed — Jersey, Friesian, rare-breed sheep and goats — and the method of making, and it becomes clear why this country has more than 700 named varieties, most of them revived or invented in the last forty years.

What makes regional cheese worth seeking out is that so much of it does not travel. Crumbly cheeses that are eaten young, soft cheeses that ripen in days, blues that need constant turning: none of these suit a long lorry journey or a supermarket shelf. You find them at market stalls and deli counters, cut to order, often made within a county or two of where you are standing.

The Crumbly Territorials

These are the old county cheeses, made in large drums and eaten either young and sharp or held back until they turn rich and mellow.

• Cheshire — from the salt-rich pastures of the Cheshire plain, this is one of the oldest named cheeses in Britain. Young, it is friable, slightly salty and almost chalky; aged, it becomes darker and more savoury. Red Cheshire is coloured with annatto.
• Lancashire — creamy and moist when young, flaky and tangy when matured. The best versions are noticeably buttery and hold together on the tongue rather than dissolving into grit.
• Caerphilly — a Welsh cheese traditionally made for miners, with a high salt content and a thin, pale rind. It is white, moist and lightly lemony, and it takes well to a few weeks of maturing.
• Wensleydale — from the Yorkshire Dales, honeyed and crumbly, with a clean lactic tang. The blue version was revived in the 1990s and is now arguably more interesting than the white.
• Red Leicester and Double Gloucester — both from the Midlands and the West, both coloured with annatto, both flaky and mild. Buy them matured if you can; the supermarket versions are often little more than rubber.

The Blues

Britain's blues fall into two camps: creamy, pierced cheeses in the Stilton mould, and drier, sharper ones from the uplands.

Stilton is the famous one, and the protected version must be made in Leicestershire, Derbyshire or Nottinghamshire from local milk. Young Stilton is tight and crumbly with a clean, peppery bite; leave it six months and it becomes dense, buttery and almost sweet. Shropshire Blue is similar in method but coloured orange with annatto, which gives it a slightly sweeter, more mellow profile. Blue Wensleydale is drier and more crumbly than either, with a freshness that cuts through a heavy meal. And Dorset Blue Vinny, once almost lost, has been brought back by a handful of small dairies and is worth hunting down — it is lean, earthy and unfashionably sharp.

Soft, Fresh and Washed-Rind

This is where British cheese has changed most in a generation. Farmhouse soft cheeses now match anything made in Normandy or the Loire, and they are usually at their best within a fortnight of making.

• Soft white-rinded cheeses — the Somerset and Wiltshire versions are the classic example: mushroomy, slightly runny at the edge, with a clean, milky centre. Ask for one that is ripe but not collapsing.
• Fresh curd and goat's cheeses — often sold in small logs or discs, sometimes rolled in ash, herbs or pepper. Best eaten within days of purchase.
• Washed-rind cheeses — brushed or washed in brine, cider or ale to encourage a sticky orange rind. The smell is far more assertive than the taste, which is usually rich, savoury and surprisingly gentle.
• Ewe's milk cheeses — more common than most people realise, particularly in the west and north. They tend to be sweet and nutty, with a slightly firmer curd than goat's cheese.

Buying Well at Markets and Delis

A few habits will improve your cheese buying considerably.

• Ask to taste before you buy. Any decent counter will offer this, and it is the only reliable way to judge ripeness on the day.
• Buy cut to order rather than pre-packed. Wedges wrapped at the factory are often past their best and sweaty under the film.
• Talk about when you plan to eat it. Tell the cheesemonger whether it is for tonight or next weekend; they will pick a piece at the right stage.
• Look for rind that is intact and dry to the touch, and avoid cheeses sitting in a puddle of their own moisture.

Storing and Serving Without Fuss

Take cheese out of the fridge an hour before serving — cold mutes everything. Store it in greaseproof or waxed paper inside a loose container in the salad drawer, never tight in cling film, which traps ammonia and turns rinds slimy. Keep blues away from other cheeses so their mould does not spread.

Serve regional cheeses with plain oatcakes, good bread, celery, apple, pickled walnuts or a spoonful of chutney, and let the cheese do the talking. A local cider, perry or pale ale will flatter most of them better than wine. Buy small amounts often, eat them at room temperature, and let the landscape come through.