Cheesy Tuesday - St. Jude

Photo © Rob Jones

I have a feeling the man in the Cheese shop in Menai Bridge is beginning to recognise me. In a good way I hope.

I usually present myself at the counter and start asking odd questions such …

“What’s that one?”

“What does it taste like?”

“What have you got too much of?”

“What is selling well and you won’t have in next time I swing by?”

“Any recommendations?”

Although he is particularly skilled at describing cheeses to the unititiated … I now realise how little I know about cheese and have visited Amazon to put that right.

Anyhow - presenting St. Jude.

I think I have fallen in love with this one. Though I suspect I shall be an unfaithful lover and swear undying love to every cheese I buy. It has an amazingly tangy, fresh taste. I wish I had the vocabulary of cheese appreciation to explain. I’ll clearly have to develop one.

Anyhow - a bit of background.

St. Jude is made from fresh raw milk from a single herd of Montbéliarde cows who clearly got lost and ended up in Suffolk on a family farm. All their cheeses are handmade.

It’s a small (but big enough for me) soft, mould ripened cheese which - according to their website - has a flavour that changes depending on what the cow has been eating.

They say, “The milk is piped from the milking parlour to the cheese room where, barely an hour old, the cultures are added to acidify the milk and thus the cheesemaking process has begun. There are many factors that affect the milk composition throughout the year, such as the cow’s stage of lactation and what she is eating. These seasonal changes influence the taste and texture of the cheese which provide some of the characteristics of a true farmhouse, handmade cheese.”

Best description I can come up with is that it’s creamy and refreshing.

But that really doesn’t do it justice.

R