Tavistock Cheese Fair : we meet the sleazy cheeses.

[bunn]

In Tavistock lives Country Cheeses, and once a year they invite all their cheesy friends to the town hall for a mega tasting session. We've not been before, it was quite a show. Nice to see the town hall too, I've not been in there before, and it's rather lovely with lots of big dark oak beams and very old oil paintings of dignitaries looking slightly constipated.

All three of the Great Unpasteurised Cheddars were there - Montgomery, Keens and Westcombe. My favorite cheddar was Westcombe, though honourable mention for Greens of Glastonbury cheddar, which was not unpasteurised, but did have one hell of a flavour. 'A Man's Cheddar' as a group of ladies who were moving round the hall after us declared it, but I thought it was pretty good. It would be good grated on things, you wouldn't want a big lump of it.


There were a surprising number of goat cheeses there, I reckon probably as many goat as cow, and a decent selection of sheep cheese too. I am generally less keen on sheep cheese, I think it tends to be a bit too sharp for my taste, but we liked Wootton Organic's Little Riding and Millstone sheepy cheeses.

Not many blues were present, though Cropwell Bishop were there with their awesome Stilton and also a very nice blue shropshire, and there was also Cornish Blue, which I really love.

Rather to my surprise, we agreed on our favorite of all the cheeses, which was a new white, softish goat cheese from Norworthy called Tillerton. Norworthy is a newish producer, the chap told us that he used to send his milk up to North Devon to get it made into cheeses, but then his cheesemaker wanted to retire, so he got her to teach him how to do it. She was Austrian, apparently, but I dont' think I know enough about cheese to say if his cheeses were in an Austrian style!

Mark liked an evil cheese from Whalesborough farm called Little Stinky, but I felt it lived up to its name, so we didn't buy any of that.

Comments

[jane-somebody.livejournal.com]

I thought it was 'skeezy cheeses' or something like that (sp?)

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

I thought it was "skeezy cheeses", too, but it was close enough to put the song in my head, anyway. Sleazy cheese is a much nicer image.

[jane-somebody.livejournal.com]

Yes, it is, isn't it ;-) I was going to add to my comment that 'sleazy cheeses' gave me a mental image of the sort of cheese that lurks in unsavoury locations, accosting passers-by with urgings to "try just a bit of this lovely young Wensleydale." I'm not sure if this is a cheese-pusher or a cheese-pimp.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

And I was going to add to my comment that "sleazy cheeses" gave me a mental image of some ripe brie slithering across the plate, saying, "put me in mouth, darling. Let me touch your lips."

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Probably is, but I too prefer the cheeses to be sleazy!