Autumn Cheese Board
As we move into autumn, there is a range of cheeses at the height of their flavour complexity, just waiting to be enjoyed by cheese lovers. So with that in mind, here is the Lidgate cheese guide to some great ideas to grace your table.
Baron Bigod is a farmhouse cheese made with raw cow's milk in Suffolk, England. This cheese is handmade in small batches at Fen Farm Dairy in Suffolk. It is made very early in the morning using cow’s milk which is still warm, straight from the free-ranging Montbeliarde cows. It is a traditional Brie style cheese produced by the Crickmore family on their farm. Underneath its bloomy rind you’ll discover a silky smooth, rich paste with a creamy, mushroomy and long-lasting flavour that oozes delightfully.
Brie de Meaux is referred to as "The King of Bries" this is a creamy brie made from raw milk with distinctive flavours and rich and buttery with notes of mushrooms and truffles. Its name comes from the town of Meaux in the Brie region.
Comte is a semi-hard French cows milk cheese is matured for 12 months in the caves of the Jura Mountains. Comté. It is made from unpasteurized cow's milk. Comté cheeses go through the process of "jury terroir", where panels of trained volunteer tasters from Comté supply chain and from the region discuss and publish bi-monthly in the newsletter Les Nouvelles de Comté about the taste and their results.
Langres is a cow milk cheese with a delicate creamy taste that is punctuated with a very pleasant tang in the tail. The aroma of Langres is strong, and the texture is smooth and firm. It is made in small dairies in the Champagne region and possibly dates back to the time of the Merovingian kings who reigned from about 500 -700AD. The dip in the top of the truncated cheese is widely used as a miniature reservoir for local speciality alcohols, such as Champagne, brandy or kirsch.
Cornish Yarg comes from Liskeard in Cornwall. It is a grass-rich milk cheese wrapped in delicate edible nettle rind from the milk of Fresian cows. The cheese is produced at Lynher Dairies Cheese Company on Pengreep Farm near Truro, by Catherine Mead, Dane Hopkins and team. "Yarg" is simply "Gray" spelt backwards. It is named after Alan and Jenny Gray, enterprising farmers who found a 1615 recipe by Gervase Markham for a nettle-wrapped semi-hard cheese in their attic.
Breberiousse D'Argental is a soft cheese made from unpasteurised ewe's milk. Brebirousse is French for ‘red sheep’ and gets its name from its annatto-tinged rind that encases a creamy, spreadable paste with a grassy aroma and a subtle milky sweetness.