WHY DO WE LOVE CHEESE SO MUCH?! 🧀

ACheese on toast. Cheesecake. Wallace and Gromit. We are committed to the stuff. It may have started with cheddar, but artisan cheesemakers have exploded over the past few years. We have fallen in love with hand-made kinds of cheese and cheese experiences.

The days are gone when we had to look to France or Italy for a soft brie or a mild goat's cheese. Now we relish a Baron Bigod, a stunning product from Suffolk, Buffalicious mozzarella from Yeovil. There's Cornish Yarg, Colston Bassett Stilton, Bath Blue, Somerset cheddar, and small fabulous goat cheeses pop up from all over the British Isles.

We are now taken as serious players by our overseas friends, and you don't need to be a cheese taster to see why.We even make the biscuits, for goodness' sake. From sourdough to fruity toasts, every week sees a new arrival, and jolly tasty they are too.

With this new explosion of British cheese, it isn't surprising that our cheese experiences are some of our best sellers.

If you don't want to sit down for a complete meal, then cheese is the ideal stopgap. Delicious paired with wine, a wooden board filled with cheese—maybe cut with a pickled walnut or a slice of pear—and you are on the way to feeling, if not delirious, certainly bathing in a warm glow of contentment.

Cheese makes for an ideal date night, especially in these straitened times. If you are up for a challenge, make some yourself. Armed with a small Lakeland recipe book, some muslin, and a strainer, I made a cottage cheese and a small fresh white. I went off-piste and added some thyme leaves, and the end result was pleasingly impressive. I won't be doing it every day, but now it holds no fear for me! There is something about demystifying a process that is very pleasing. I don't need to be the world's expert cheesemaker. I've acquired not a new skill—I'm not that naive—more akin to trying out a new recipe. It certainly gets everyone's attention at supper.

Now here's an interesting statistic: 4% of all cheese made is stolen. After all, it mostly comes in small packets and is rather pricey. Recently, Neal's Yard lost a whopping £300,000 worth of cheddar, which has probably skewed this percentage. Cheese heists feature all over the world. Maybe it's to our credit that thieves are now looking to the UK. Our cheese is that good.

Samuel Pepys recorded burying his Parmesan in his garden to avoid a meltdown during the Great Fire in 1666. This is, of course, extreme, but even back in the day, cheese was currency.

If you like it cheesy check out all our cheese experiences >