Stilton is an Englishcheese, produced in two varieties: Blue, which has Penicillium roqueforti added to generate a characteristic smell and taste, and White, which does not. Both have been granted the status of a protected designation of origin (PDO) by the European Commission, requiring that only such cheese produced in the three counties of Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire may be called Stilton. The cheese takes its name from the village of Stilton, now in Cambridgeshire, where it has long been sold, but cannot be made because it is not in one of the three permitted counties.
Frances Pawlett (or Paulet), a cheese maker of Wymondham, Leicestershire, has traditionally been credited with setting up the modern Stilton cheese shape and style in the 1720s,[2][3] but others have also been named.[4] Early 19th-century research published by William Marshall provides logic and oral history to indicate a continuum between the locally produced cheese of Stilton, and the later development of a high turnover commercial industry importing cheese produced elsewhere, under local guidance.[5] A recipe for a Stilton cheese was published in 1726 by Richard Bradley, later first Professor of Botany at Cambridge University.[6]
Another early printed reference to Stilton cheese came from William Stukeley in 1722.[7]Daniel Defoe in his 1724 work A Tour thro' the Whole Island of Great Britain notes, "We pass'd Stilton, a town famous for cheese, which is call'd our English Parmesan, and is brought to table with the mites or maggots round it, so thick, that they bring a spoon with them for you to eat the mites with, as you do the cheese."[8]
According to the Stilton Cheesemaker's Association, the first person to market Blue Stilton cheese was Cooper Thornhill, owner of the Bell Inn on the Great North Road, in the village of Stilton, Huntingdonshire,[9] (now an administrative district of Cambridgeshire). Tradition has it that in 1730, Thornhill discovered a distinctive blue cheese while visiting a small farm near Melton Mowbray in rural Leicestershire – possibly Wymondham.[10] He fell in love with the cheese and made a business arrangement that granted the Bell Inn exclusive marketing rights to Blue Stilton. Soon thereafter, wagonloads of cheese were being delivered there. The village stood on the Great North Road, a main stagecoach route between London and Northern England, so that Thornhill could promote sales and the fame of Stilton spread rapidly.
In 1936 the Stilton Cheesemakers' Association (SCMA) was formed to lobby for regulation to protect the quality and origin of the cheese. In 1966 Stilton was granted legal protection via a certification trade mark, the only British cheese to have received that status.[9]
While Stilton was originally made from raw milk, production switched over to pasteurised milk after a health scare in the late 1980s. Since Stilton gained protected designation of origin status in 1996, cheese made from raw milk can no longer be sold under the Stilton name.[11][12]
Manufacture and PDO status
The Tuxford & Tebbutt creamery in Melton Mowbray
Blue Stilton's distinctive blue veins are created by piercing the crust of the cheese with stainless steel needles, allowing air into the core. The manufacturing and ripening process takes some nine to twelve weeks.
By September 2016, just six dairies were licensed to make Stilton – three in Leicestershire, two in Nottinghamshire, and one in Derbyshire[13] – each being subject to regular audit by an independent inspection agency accredited to European Standard EN 45011. Four of the licensed dairies are based in the Vale of Belvoir, which straddles the Nottinghamshire/Leicestershire/Lincolnshire borders. This area is commonly seen as the heartland of Stilton production, with dairies located in the town of Melton Mowbray and the villages of Colston Bassett, Cropwell Bishop, Long Clawson and Saxelbye. Another Leicestershire dairy was in the grounds of Quenby Hall near the village of Hungarton, outside the generally accepted boundaries of the Vale of Belvoir. Quenby Hall restarted Stilton production in a new dairy in August 2005 (the old dairy dated back to the 18th century) but the business folded in 2011.[14]
Stilton cheese has been made in Derbyshire since 1900, originally at Hartington.[15] The former Dairy Crest-owned licensed dairy that produced the product at Hartington was acquired by the Long Clawson dairy in 2008 and closed in 2009, with its production transferred to Leicestershire. Two former employees set up the Hartington Creamery at Pikehall in Hartington parish, which was licensed in 2014. Three additional partners soon joined them and this business is the smallest of the six companies licensed to make Stilton.[16][17] As of March 2021, Hartington Stilton was marketing within the UK but also exporting to the US and to the EU; it had just started exporting to Canada. The company director told the BBC that they had "a surge in interest and consumer sales from the US" but it had to stop sales to the European Union following Brexit because of the cost of a veterinary surgeon certificate.[18]
Stilton cheese cannot be made in Stilton village, which gave the cheese its name,[19] because it is not in any of the three permitted counties, but rather in the administrative county of Cambridgeshire and the historic county of Huntingdonshire. The Original Cheese Company applied to Defra to amend the Stilton PDO to include the village, but the application was rejected in 2013.[20]
Stilton cheese was also manufactured in Staffordshire. The Nuttall family of Beeby, Leicestershire opened a Stilton cheese factory in Uttoxeter in 1892 to take advantage of the local milk and good transport links. However, this firm did not last long and the site became a general dairy.[21]
Protected characteristics
Slice of a Blue Stilton, viewed from the rind side, showing inoculation holes
To be labelled as "Blue Stilton" in the EU, a cheese must:[22]
A number of blue cheeses are made in a similar way to Blue Stilton. These gain their blue veins and distinct flavour from the use of one or more saprotrophicfungi, such as Penicillium roqueforti and Penicillium glaucum. Since the PDO came into effect, some British supermarkets have stocked a generic "British Blue cheese". Other makers have adopted their own names and styles. Other typical British blue cheeses are Oxford Blue and Shropshire Blue. Stichelton is an English blue cheese virtually identical to Blue Stilton, but because it does not use pasteurised milk it cannot legally be called Stilton,[23] due its PDO status.
Many countries have blue cheeses. Italy, for example, has greenish blue Gorgonzola made from cow's milk. France has blue cheeses such as Fourme d'Ambert from Auvergne, made with cow's milk, and Roquefort, made with ewe's milk. Denmark produces Danish Blue Cheese. Some of the many cheeses in the Netherlands are blue, such as Ruscello.[24]
Consumption
Blueberry White Stilton
Blue Stilton is often eaten with celery or pears. It is commonly added as a flavouring to vegetable soup, notably to cream of celery or broccoli.[25] It is otherwise eaten with various crackers, biscuits or bread. It can be used to make a blue cheese sauce to be served drizzled over a steak, or the cheese can be crumbled over a salad. Traditionally, a barley wine or port is paired with Blue Stilton, but it also goes well with sweet sherry or Madeira wine. The practice of scooping a hollow in the centre of a Stilton cheese and pouring port wine into it is deprecated; nonetheless this combination has been marketed in screw-topped tubes "like toothpaste".[26][27] The cheese is traditionally eaten at Christmas.[28] The rind of the cheese forms naturally during the aging process and is edible, unlike the rind of some other cheeses, such as Edam.[citation needed]
White Stilton has not had the Penicillium roqueforti mould introduced into it, which would otherwise lead to the blue veining normally associated with Stilton. It is a crumbly, creamy, open-textured cheese now extensively used as a base for blending with apricot, ginger and citrus or vine fruits to create dessert cheeses and has also been used as a flavouring for chocolate.[29]
English author G. K. Chesterton wrote several essays on cheese, specifically on the absence of cheese in art. In one of these he recalls a time when he happened to visit a small town in the fenlands of England, which turned out to be Stilton. His experience in Stilton left a deep impression on him, which he expressed through poetry in his "Sonnet to a Stilton Cheese":
Stilton, thou shouldst be living at this hour And so thou art. Nor losest grace thereby; England has need of thee, and so have I — She is a Fen. Far as the eye can scour, League after grassy league from Lincoln tower To Stilton in the fields, she is a Fen. Yet this high cheese, by choice of fenland men, Like a tall green volcano rose in power. Plain living and long drinking are no more, And pure religion reading "Household Words", And sturdy manhood sitting still all day Shrink, like this cheese that crumbles to its core; While my digestion, like the House of Lords, The heaviest burdens on herself doth lay.
This is in part a parody of William Wordsworth's sonnet "London, 1802", the opening line of which was "Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour."
George Orwell wrote an essay, "In Defence of English Cooking", first published in the Evening Standard on 15 December 1945. While enumerating the high points of British cuisine, he touches on Stilton: "Then there are the English cheeses. There are not many of them, but I fancy that Stilton is the best cheese of its type in the world, with Wensleydale not far behind."[32]
The Stilton Cheese Makers Association produced a fragrance called Eau de Stilton, which was "very different to the very sweet perfumes you smell wafting down the street as someone walks past you."[33]
The search for an unpasteurised Stilton cheese was a plot element of a Chef! episode titled "The Big Cheese", aired on BBC1 on 25 February 1993.
Roquefort is a sheep milk blue cheese from southern France. Though similar cheeses are produced elsewhere, EU law dictates that only those cheeses aged in the natural Combalou caves of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon may bear the name Roquefort, as it is a recognised geographical indication, and has a protected designation of origin.
Hartington is a village in the centre of the White Peak area of the Derbyshire Peak District, England, lying on the River Dove which is the Staffordshire border. According to the 2001 census, the parish of Hartington Town Quarter, which also includes Pilsbury, had a population of 345 reducing to 332 at the 2011 Census. Formerly known for cheese-making and the mining of ironstone, limestone and lead, the village is now popular with tourists.
Cheesemaking is the craft of making cheese. The production of cheese, like many other food preservation processes, allows the nutritional and economic value of a food material, in this case milk, to be preserved in concentrated form. Cheesemaking allows the production of the cheese with diverse flavors and consistencies.
Blue cheese is any of a wide range of cheeses made with the addition of cultures of edible molds, which create blue-green spots or veins through the cheese. Blue cheeses vary in taste from very mild to strong, and from slightly sweet to salty or sharp; in colour from pale to dark; and in consistency from liquid to hard. They may have a distinctive smell, either from the mold or from various specially cultivated bacteria such as Brevibacterium linens.
Stilton is a village and civil parish in Cambridgeshire, England, about 12 miles (19 km) north of Huntingdon in Huntingdonshire, which is a non-metropolitan district of Cambridgeshire as well as a historic county of England.
Gloucester is a traditional, semi-hard cheese which has been made in Gloucestershire, England, since the 16th century. There are two varieties of the cheese, Single and Double; both are traditionally made from milk from Gloucester cattle. Both types have a natural rind and a hard texture, but Single Gloucester is more crumbly, lighter in texture and lower in fat. Double Gloucester is allowed to age for longer periods than Single, and it has a stronger and more savoury flavour. It is also slightly firmer. The wild flower Galium verum, known colloquially as lady's bedstraw, was originally responsible for the distinctively yellow colour of Double Gloucester cheese.
Long Clawson is a village and former civil parish, now included in that of Clawson, Hose and Harby, in the Melton district and the county of Leicestershire, England. Being in the Vale of Belvoir, the village is enclosed by farmland with rich soil ideal for pasture. Milk from local farms is used for Stilton cheese, of which the Long Clawson dairy is one of the largest producers. In 1931 the civil parish had a population of 664.
Danablu, often marketed under the trademark Danish Blue Cheese within North America, is a strong, blue-veined cheese. This semi-soft creamery cheese is typically drum- or block-shaped and has a yellowish, slightly moist, edible rind. Made from full fat cow's milk and homogenized cream, it has a fat content of 25–30% and is aged for eight to twelve weeks.
Pikehall is a small village in the Derbyshire Dales consisting of a few dozen households and a handful of farms. The population of the village is included in the civil parish of Hartington Nether Quarter. The A5012 road runs through the middle, dividing the village in half. The village is home to the annual Y Not Festival.
Penicillium roqueforti is a common saprotrophic fungus in the genus Penicillium. Widespread in nature, it can be isolated from soil, decaying organic matter, and plants.
Buxton Blue is an English blue cheese that is a close relative of Blue Stilton, is made from cow's milk, and is lightly veined with a deep russet colouring. It is usually made in a cylindrical shape.
Shropshire Blue is a cow's milk cheese made in the United Kingdom.
Coulommiers is a soft ripened cheese from Coulommiers, Seine-et-Marne, France. It is made from cow's milk, and is usually in the shape of a disc with white, bloomy, edible Penicillium candidum rind. When produced as an artisanal or "farmhouse" cheese from unpasteurized milk, it has some reddish blush in parts of the rind. The period of ripening when made of pasteurised whole milk is about four to six weeks. The fat content is 40 per cent.
Lanark Blue is a sheep milk cheese produced in Lanarkshire, Scotland.
J&L Grubb is an Irish cheese manufacturer, making cows' milk and goats' milk cheeses on their farm near Fethard, County Tipperary.
Stichelton is an English blue cheese. It is similar to Blue Stilton cheese, except that it does not use pasteurised milk or factory-produced rennet. The name comes from a form of the name of Stilton village in the 1086 Domesday Book (Stichiltone/Sticiltone), as the name Stilton cannot legally be used for the cheese.
Dovedale, sold as Dovedale Blue, is a blue cheese. It is named after the Dovedale valley in the Peak District, near where it is produced.
Oxford Blue is a variety and brand of blue cheese produced in Burford, Oxfordshire, England in 1995 by French baron Robert Pouget in the tradition of Stilton cheese but with a creamier consistency especially when the cheese was allowed to mature. It is a soft and creamy cheese that has tangy, aromatic and spicy qualities. By 2013, around five tonnes were produced monthly.
↑ The Comprehensive Gazetteer of England & Wales, 1894–1895.
1 2 Trott, Robert E (12 January 1994). "Product Specification". Agricultural and Rural Development DOOR. European Commission. Archived from the original on 5 March 2016. Retrieved 24 January 2016.
↑ Richard Nalley "The Eye," Stichelton Cheese, October 2008, Forbes Life
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