Cheshire Cheese

Cheshire cheese is one of the oldest recorded named cheeses in British history: it is mentioned, along with a Shropshire cheese, by Thomas Muffet (also Moufet, Mouffet, or Moffet, c.1553 – 5 June 1604) in Health's Improvement (c. 1580).

Manufacture
Salt is essential to the production of Cheshire cheese.

Sales
Cheshire cheese captured a large share of the London market after the first shipload arrived in 1650, such that the principal cheese eaten in London in the late 17th and 18th century was Cheshire. It gave its name to many eating places. In 1678, Samuel Pepys is recorded visiting "The Cheshire Cheese", probably in Crutched Friars near his house beside the Tower of London. In September 1678, Dr Johnson and Oliver Goldsmith (Robert Hooker’s diary 1678) often dined together in the Cheshire Cheese Tavern in Wine Office Court, Fleet Street: now Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese pub at 145 Fleet Street. Cheese was not sent by land, unless as an extra in a carriers’ cart – the carrier would have to buy a few cheeses at £20 a ton. It is recorded that the ship the James arrived in London with 20 tons of cheese on 21 October 1650 (PRO, E190/45/6, London coastal for 1650). This was a marketing coup for William Seaman, a London merchant who came from Cheshire – his family financed the voyage. Port books for London show no less than 364 tons of cheese was sent to London in 1664. They also show that sales increased – ships from Chester brought 1000 tons in the 1670s and nearly 2000 tons by the 1680s. Cheese was virtually the only freight going from the north-west to London. The voyage of ketches could be as little as nine days from Chester in the 1680s, but the average voyage (from Port books) was 26 days. Return loads to the north-west for cheese ships was a more exotic cargo of teas, spices, currants and silks.

In the 17th century, a cow probably produced 240lb=109kg of cheese per year. So 1,000 tons of cheese represented the output of some 10,000 cows. Dairy herds in the Northwest, therefore, must have been increased by some 20,000 cows between 1650 and 1688. However, in 1689, French privateers and war meant trade virtually ceased by ship. The land carriage put the cheese from £5 – £8 a ton, and slowly reduced demand. With the end of the long war with Louis XIV, in 1713 the cheese ships started to sail again, and at least 2,600 tons were shipped from the NW in 1717 and 18. The market had more than doubled since the 1680s. Because the efficient operation of ships required a stock of cheese to be ready in a warehouse for them to load, the London cheesemongers soon realised they had to employ "factors" to buy cheese in advance of the ship’s arrival. Originally factors bought cheese from fairs and markets, but buying on the farm became universal in the 1700s.

As well as the cheese sent to London, much was eaten locally – 40lbs a year consumed by each inhabitant (of Arley Hall) in the 1620s. This total rose to over 120lbs in the 1750s and 60s. To accommodate this local consumption, there must have been about 20,000 cows in Cheshire, occupying a third of the suitable land in the county, and the rest of the area around. There was a driving force to create viable dairy farms with herds of 10 cows or more, so mergers of those with freehold took place.

Red Cheese
Red Cheshire, coloured with annatto to a shade of deep orange, was developed in the hills of North Wales and sold to travellers on the road to Holyhead. This trade was so successful that the travellers came to believe that all Cheshire cheese was orange, and producers in its home county were obliged to dye their cheese in order to match the expectations of the market.

Blue Cheese
Like many of our historic blue cheeses, Blue Cheshire was often an accident arising from the traditional Cheshire making process. Whole cheeses would be stored in barns and as they dried out their coats might crack and allow environmental moulds to enter the cheese. The penicillium roqueforti mould is endemic and particularly so in areas where leather saddles and reins might have been stored. Some cheeses went blue and were seen as a highly desirable accident!

Cheese and the Navy
The cheese ration in Nelson's navy was 4oz every other day. Prior to 1758 it is not clear which brand of cheese the navy purchased for supply, but it may have been Suffolk as mentioned in the 1745 edition of the "Regulations and Instructions Relating to His Majesty’s Service at Sea". Suffolk was a very hard cows' milk cheese, possibly similar to Parmesan, the unique hardness and durability of which was celebrated, or decried, in poems, songs and jokes. In 'The Hampshire Chronicle' - Monday 19 December 1825;


 * "As characteristic of Suffolk cheese, it said that a vessel once laden, one half with grindstones and the other half with the above commodity, on arriving at its destination it was found that the rats had consumed all the grindstones, but left the cheeses untouched."

Suffolk cheese is no longer made. There were frequent complaints against it, and in 1758 the decision was taken to switch to Cheshire and Gloucester Cheese, even though they were considerably more expensive and probably did not keep so well. It may be significant that two early sources instruct that Cheshire Cheese be issued at two thirds the weight of Suffolk, whereas none of the later sources mention any such provision. The reasons for the change appear to have had little to do with the complaints, cattle disease and floods in the 1640s seriously affected the Suffolk cheese trade. Not only that but Suffolk cheese doubled in price and farmers skimmed-off the cream for more lucrative butter production (Robert Royce ‘Breviary of Suffolk’). This reduced the quality of Suffolk cheese so much that by the 1660s "even servants complained about being asked to eat it" (Samuel Pepys’ diary).

Online

 * Cheshire Cheese on Wikipedia;