Named for a village near Bristol where farmer Joseph Harding first
manufactured it, the best is still called Farmhouse Cheddar, but in
America we have practically none of this. Farmhouse Cheddar must be
ripened at least nine months to a mellowness, and little of our
American cheese gets as much as that. Back in 1695 John Houghton wrote
that it "contended in goodness (if kept from two to five years,
according to magnitude) with any cheese in England."
Today it is called "England's second-best cheese," second after
Stilton, of course.
In early days a large cheese sufficed for a year or two of family
feeding, according to this old note: "A big Cheddar can be kept for
two years in excellent condition if kept in a cool room and turned
over every other day."
But in old England some were harder to preserve: "In Bath... I asked
one lady of the larder how she kept Cheddar cheese. Her eyes twinkled:
'We don't keep cheese; we eats it.'"
Cheshire
A Cheshireman sailed into Spain
To trade for merchandise;
When he arrived from the main
A Spaniard him espies.
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