Sheridans' Guide to Cheese: A Guide to High-Quality Artisan Farmhouse Cheeses

77 Pages·2016·2.7 MB·English

by  Sheridan

www.sheridanscheesemongers.com

Seamus and Kevin
For
Our parents, Seamus and Maura Sheridan
Our partners, Miriam and Rachel
The next generation: Shane, Molly, Aoifa, Ian, Freddie, Manus, Juno, Cass,
Donagh and Alexander
Catherine
For Liam, Shane, Peter and Isaac. May you never tire of cheese jokes.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
Introduction
PART ONE—OUR HISTORY OF CHEESE
THE SHERIDANS STORY
THE WORLD’S OLDEST CHEESE: Digging up the origins of our dairying culture
HAIRY PROTEINS AND LEGO BLOCKS: The science of cheese
PART TWO—THE CHEESES
FRESH CHEESES: From mozzarella to the Loire Chèvres—local or authentic and
a livelihood in cheese
BLOOMY RINDS: From Brie to triple crèmes—raw milk cheese, the Camembert
wars and the woman behind the cheese
WASHED RINDS: From Milleens to Époisses—people, places and the cheese
they produce
PRESSED UNCOOKED CHEESES: From Cheddar to Gouda—the farm behind the
cheese and new traditions
PRESSED COOKED CHEESES: From Parmigiano to Emmental—the cheese vault
and cheese on trial
THE BLUES: From Cashel Blue to Stilton—the family behind the cheese and
preparing to feast
Afterword: Thoughts from behind the counter
Glossary of terms
Picture acknowledgements
Index
About the authors
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
For sharing your knowledge, thank you to archaeologists Peter Bogucki, Seamus
Caulfield, Pam Crabtree and Jessica Smyth, microbiologist Rachel Dutton and
UCC’s dairy expert Alan Kelly.
For sharing your story, thank you to Anna L’Eveque, Breda Maher, Eamonn
Lonergan, Bill Hogan, Quinlan Steele, Jeffa Gill, Giorgio Cravero, Sarah and
Sergio Furno, Jane and Louis Grubb.
Thank you to our friends in cheese who contributed notes on their favourite
cheeses.
Thank you to Dan Fennelly and Elisabeth Ryan for advice on cheese and wine
notes and to Franck Le Moenner for help with the photography.
Thank you to Catherine Cleary, for putting up with us—it has been a true
pleasure sharing thoughts and working with you.
Thank you to our agent, Sharon Bowers, who encouraged us to write this
book. Thank you to the team at Transworld: Henry Vines, Eoin McHugh,
Micaela Alcaino, Becky Wright, Peter Ward, Katrina Whone, Phil Lord and
Alison Martin.
Catherine would also like to thank Ger Siggins for thinking of her when
someone said cheese, and her parents Joan and Shane, who provided a much-
needed writer’s retreat.
The story of Sheridans Cheesemongers is a story of the many wonderful
people who have been a part of this small company over the past twenty years.
We would like to thank all of the people who have worked with us. It is
impossible to mention every one of you but a few we must thank in particular.
Fiona Corbett, a partner for many years and a big part of the Sheridans story.
Finn O’Sullivan who supported us for many years and sadly passed away. Those
in our team who have stayed with us for so long—Mark Booker, Gerry Flynn,
Paula le Moenner, Elisabeth Ryan, Sharon Bagnall and John Leverrier.
To those who have supported us down through the years—thank you, John
and Sally McKenna, Derek Ryan, Phillip Caswell, Peter Dunne, the Jephson
Family, Keith Newman, David Byers, Roisin Coyle, Niall Sweeny and Simon
Phelan.
Every cheesemaker we work with in Ireland or abroad has a fascinating story
to tell. However, we had space in this book to give a window to only a few. Thank
you to all those we have worked with down through the years.
Most of all, thank you to our customers. To those who have supported our
shops and market stalls in Galway, Dublin, Ardkeen and Meath. And to the chefs
and shopkeepers who have been so loyal.
INTRODUCTION
W
e love cheese. Chances are you do too. In this book we’d like to share
some of what two decades working as cheesemongers has taught us.
We’ve learned patience, determination and respect for the ingenuity of people.
We know what makes a great cheese—people working with their landscape and
their animals to transform the milk of here and now into a chunk of there and
then. Great cheese can’t be faked. It is the antithesis of a modern food culture in
which the relationship between people and the land and its animals has been
destroyed.
When we visit cheesemakers, we’re always struck by the sense of rhythm in
their lives. They talk to you as they stir, cut and scoop, explaining things but
never breaking the rhythm. There’s a rhythm to the milking, the cleaning, the
cheesemaking, the turning and wiping of the cheeses. Although cheesemakers
approach their craft in all kinds of different ways, they all share the same steady
tempo, set by the daily rhythm of milking and making. The other surprise that
you can’t help but notice is the hard physical work of cheesemaking. In warm,
humid dairies arms are stretched and backs are bent. There is a weight of
dripping curd to be stirred and lifted and turned in the moulds. After the
cheesemaking, there is the scouring and scrubbing, washing and mopping of
every inch. This is not work carried out in flowery shirts and sandals—
cheesemaking requires white coats, rubber boots and tough aprons. When the
washing is done, the cheeses of yesterday, last week and sometimes the previous
summer need to be looked after, pressed, turned, wiped, washed, packed. This is
work done by men and women who get up early and go to bed tired.
We at Sheridans are proud of our role as cheesemongers. We are the bridge
between farmers and cheesemakers on one side, and the Michelin-starred chef or
the home cook on the other. The quest for the next delicious thing to put in our
mouths has taken us from small Irish farms down tiny country roads, to cheese
cellars hidden behind kitchens high in the French Alps. We have listened,
smelled, tasted and learned. And it is those experiences we want to share in this
book.
I
t is mind-boggling to think that everything in a cheese shop like ours comes
from the same simple honest starting point: milk.
Cheeses of every shape and size line our shelves like blocks from a child’s
shape game. Some of them are wrapped, others have light coatings that feel like
human skin. Some are marbled and mouldy, others a pure vibrant colour—the
whitest of whites or the creamiest of yellows. There are cheeses you could slide
into a matchbox and ones that would need several people to heft on to a table.
Some of our cheeses look like they’ve been hewn out of a landscape, saved from
the ashes of a fire or sliced out of the side of a cliff face.
The milk might be yaks’ or sheep’s or goats’, buffaloes’ or cows’. But all cheese
starts with the same magical white liquid produced by an animal to nourish its
offspring. It is the ingenuity of the men and women who make the cheese that
gives us the riot of choice. It’s food with personality. And yet, cheesemakers
aren’t all a common ‘type’. They have no single set of values. Some come to
cheesemaking from tradition—they are born into a way of life. Some are misled
entrepreneurs. Some are farmers looking for more than they can get in an
anonymous market place. Some are people in search of another way to live,
looking for a connection with the land and the thrill that comes from creating
something beautiful. Some are restless and creative. Some don’t even like cheese
that much.
In this book we’re going to take you into the dairies, maturing rooms, labs,
archaeological digs and cheese shops to explore a fascinating food. By the end
you will know a lot about cheese. We might even nudge you away from your old
reliable favourites into a host of incredibly delicious alternatives. You’ll be able to
work your way around a cheeseboard, use cheese to create memorably good
meals at any time of the year and negotiate a cheese shop anywhere in the world
like an expert.
As well as guiding you through the different types of cheeses and how to buy,
use, cook and store them, we also hope to explore the places and the people who
have created them. We believe cheese opens up important stories of culture,
history, science and agriculture. Yes, we’re biased, but we think cheese has a lot
to tell us about life. We want to cut through myths, food snobbery and rose-
tinted romanticism to show you that not everything from a farmhouse is
sensational and not everything from a factory is mediocre.
After two decades in the cheese world, we still have a sense of adventure and
the ability to be blown away by something new. Since we sold our first cheese,
food production has grown vaster and has become ever more industrialised. The