A Day of Cheese in Cardiff - 26 Sept.

The weekend before last, Jeff and I drove over to Cardiff in Wales for the Great British Cheese Festival. This was my first time to Wales, so I was quite excited!

The Cheese Festival took place at the Cardiff Castle. We arrived just as the first visitors were being let in, but saved touring the castle for another day.














The main attraction was the large tent containing "Britian's Biggest Cheese Market, where you can buy over 400 different cheeses, meet over 100 British & Irish cheese makers, taste the strongest cheese in Britain or try this year’s new kids on the block."
Each producer set out multiple plates of each of their cheeses. We could sample as many different kinds of cheese as we wanted. It amazed us how different each kind of cheese tasted, looked and felt from each producer.

Not only were the cheeses different from one producer to the next, but there were also similar, yet different, cheeses from the same producer! One producer, called Quickes Traditional Ltd., offered the following Cheddar cheeses: "Traditional Mature Cheddar", "Traditional Extra Mature Cheddar", "Traditional Mild Cheddar", "Traditional Vintage Cheddar", "Traditional Unpasteurised Cheddar", "Traditional Oak Smoked Cheddar" and "Traditional Cheddar with Herbs".
Of course, there weren't only Cheddar cheeses, but also blue cheeses, Red Leicester, Double Gloucester, goats cheeses, Welsh Caerphilly, cheeses with chutney, dried fruit, onion, garlic and herbs, Brie, hard cheeses, soft cheeses, and spreadable cheeses.

We ended up purchasing the following 6 cheeses:
"Blacksticks Blue": a soft and creamy amber coloured blue veined cheese, handmade in the heart of Lancashire by the Butlers family using local cows milk.
"Dorset Red" from Ford Farm: handmade & matured on the Dorset Coast, a hard English aged cheese naturally smoked over oak chips.
"Innkeepers Choice - Mature Cheddar Cheese with Pickled Onions & Chives".
"Real Yorkshire Wensleydale" from the Wensleydale Creamery in Hawes.
"Real Yorkshire Wensleydale with Ginger".
"Real Yorkshire Wensleydale & Cranberries": the 'crammed berry' cheese.

The men were competing in the cheese tossing championship. The object of the game was to see how far the pairs could toss a large log of cheese. Each time the partner caught the log of cheese, he would take a step back. When the cheese hit the ground, their turn was over and the referee measured the distance between the partners.














In the afternoon, we took two classes at the "School For Big Cheeses". The first class was titled "Science of the Ploughman". We compared the flavor of 5 different Cheddar cheeses to 5 accompaniments: pickled onion, bread, apple, chutney and tomato. The accompaniment brought out different flavors from each cheese.



















The second class we took was called "Singing the Blues" - Steve Peace, cheese maker at Carmarthenshire Cheese, has created several award-winning Blues himself and has gathered together 10 new and traditional British blues to demonstrate their extraordinary diversity and complexity. A unique opportunity for Blue cheese lovers.














We compared 10 different blue cheeses, including a Stilton, a goats cheese and an unpasteurized cheese. We were given huge hunks of cheese, simply too much to consume in one sitting! The "teacher" explained that the process of making blue cheese is different than that of 'normal' cheese and that there is actually mold throughout blue cheese, not just in the blue veins of the cheese.














We are not cheese connoisseurs by any means, but we thoroughly enjoyed the day and have had our fill of cheese for the year... or maybe two!