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#50: Yorkshire Pecorino Fresco

Pecorino is Italian sheep’s cheese: “pecora” means “sheep” in Italian. When I think of pecorino, I think of a hard, aged, nutty cheese, much like our Berkswell Ewe. That’s because stagionato (seasoned = aged) cheeses travel well, and are the varieties normally exported. But within Italy fresco (fresh = young) are also made, but rarely exported.

Mario Olianas is from Sardinia, but now lives in Leeds. He makes a classic Pecorino Fresco using milk from Harrogate and cultures from Italy. It’s only 30 days old, and is smooth, yogurty and sweet. Come enjoy our finest Italian Leodensian cheese.

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#48: Little Mester

Sophie Williamson from Sheffield Cheesemasters is the only cheese manufacturer in Sheffield. Sophie decided to become a cheesemaker a year ago, after attending some professional cheesemaking courses at the School of Artisan Food. She experimented at home making lots of different types of cheese, before converting an industrial unit in the city to a make room and maturing rooms. They currently make around 250 cheeses per week using 300 litres of pasteurised milk, sourced from the local farm Our Cow Molly.

Little Mester is Sophie’s first cheese, released at the end of 2017. It as a surface-ripened soft cheese, matured for only two and a half weeks, so fresh and young tasting. It’s soft and gooey on the outside with a firmer core which continues to ripen if left for longer.

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#34(&35): Yorkshire Fettle

This ewe’s milk cheese is a Mediterranean salad style cheese from Shepherd’s Purse in North Yorkshire – definitely not feta as it’s not Greek.

Hand-salted and then hand-waxed to seal in the moisture, it comes without any excess briny liquid, and is less salty and has a firmer, creamier texture than many of its Greek counterparts.

How about it trying it in a beetroot and hazelnut salad, as recommended by its creator Judy Bell?

I’m on holiday next week folks, so there’ll be a gap in my Cheese-of-the-Weeking.

Monty xx

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#24: Hawes Wensleydale Special Reserve

From the Wensleydale Creamery in Hawes, Wensleydale Special Reserve is a slightly aged version of the famous Yorkshire export, and is certainly worth the wait. It has the usual clean flavour and crumbly texture you’d expect of Wensleydale, but with a fuller flavour.

Cheese production in Hawes has a fantastic history. The first creamery was built in 1897, and just about survived the depression of the 1930s. Eventually finding itself in the hands of Dairy Crest, the creamery closed in May 1992, but former employees and a local businessman managed to get things back on track and cheese was produced in time for Christmas. Since then it has gone from strength to strength – it continues to make fantastic cheese, using local milk, helped along the way by some unlikely plasticine ambassadors.

Cracking cheese, Gromit
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#21: Mrs Bell’s Blue

Then

Like Olde York last week, this is another ewe’s milk offering from Shepherd’s Purse. Pale white in colour and streaked with blue-grey veins, Mrs Bell’s Blue is a piquant blue not dissimilar to Roquefort, but with more creaminess and less saltiness. It has a pleasant tang that goes well with fruits.

Now

It also makes a nice contrast to our Gorgonzola Dolce, which is a younger, fruitier cow’s milk blue I’ve been enjoying with quince jelly. Come in and try both!

Monty xx

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#20: Olde York

Olde York is one of our ever popular ewe’s milk cheeses, made by Shepherd’s Purse in Yorkshire. Judy Bell (who also makes – you guessed it – Mrs Bell’s Blue, among other things) began producing cheese from sheep’s milk in the 1980s – Olde York won Gold at the 1989 Nantwich International Cheese Awards and has been going ever since.

A really fresh-tasting cheese, cuttable but quite soft, I like it with smoked salmon, although the ladies at Shepherd’s Purse go one step further in the decadence stakes and suggest strawberries and champagne…

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#5: Ribblesdale Smoked Goat’s

Morning all

This week’s cheese of the week is Ribblesdale Smoked Goat’s. It’s not a very goat-y goat’s cheese, nor is it a very smoke-y smoked cheese, but the combination definitely works.

Having started out in Horton-in-Ribblesdale, it’s now made in Hawes – more famous for its wensleydale – at a small artisan cheese maker’s specialising in goat’s cheese.

Ghostly white in colour (in its russet wax), and with a semi firm texture, it’s definitely worth a try even if you’re a professed goat’s cheese hater – come in for a taster and see if we can change your mind…