Here’s a little song I wrote...

Going to taste it note by note…. you might recognise the original (but it is not quite a Bobby McFerrin). 

On the first day of Christmas my true love sent to me

A wedge of some very fine cheese

On the second day of Christmas my true love sent to me,

Two Crozier Ewes and a wedge of some very fine cheese.

On the third day of Christmas my true love sent to me,

Three Crottin, two Crozier Ewes and a wedge of some very fine cheese.

On the fourth day of Christmas my true love sent to me,

Four Bulging Bries, three Crottin, Two Crozier Ewes….. 

On the fifth day of Christmas my true love sent to me,

Five Ripe Epoisses, four Bulging Bries, Three Crottin….

On the sixth day of Christmas my true love sent to me,

Six Cheddars a-biting, five Ripe Epoisses, Four Bulging Bries…

On the seventh day of Christmas my true love sent to me,

Seven Blues a-weeping, six cheddars a-biting, five Ripe Epoisses…

On the eighth day of Christmas my true love sent to me,

Eight lads a-milking, seven blues a-weeping, six cheddars a-biting…..

On the ninth day of Christmas my true love sent to me,

Nine Comtés rolling, eight lads a-milking, seven blues a-weeping….

On the tenth day of Christmas my true love sent to me,

Ten Mongers running, nine Comtés rolling, eight lads a-milking….

On the eleventh day of Christmas my true love sent to me,

Eleven Ports & Brandies, ten Mongers running, nine Comtés rolling…

On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love sent to me,

Twelve Mont D’Or stinking, eleven Ports & Brandies, ten mongers running, nine Comtés rolling, eight lads a-milking, seven blues a-weeping, six cheddars biting, five ripe Epoisses, four Bulging Bries, three Crottin, two Crozier Ewes and a Wedge of some very fine Cheese!

Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’

Move ‘em on, head ‘em up                               Count ‘em out, ride ‘em in,

   Head ‘em up, move em up                                     Ride ‘em in, count ‘em out,

      Move ‘em on, head ‘em up                                        Count ‘em out, ride ‘em in

         Rawhide!                                                                             Rawhide!   

Ambition, what’s it to you? 

This young thing, riding hell-bent for the glimmer, kicking-on towards that distant glammer and itching, digging deep for some bling…

It is a long way to way to glory but what other way would you go?

I like the Young Buck. I like it, like I like those young boys in class who have confidence, who answer back and make you laugh though you know you’re shouldn’t. Presumption is one way to get to through a door, whether or not you manage to stay there is a matter of charm and bravado or habit – I’d rather the former.

Young Buck is a blue cheese made by Michael Thomson. Young Buck is a pretender (like any pretender to the throne, there, just not on the seat) to Stilton, to Stitchelton, to Great Island Blues. Mike Thomson goes by the company name of Mike’s Fancy (ever a Western edge) He makes this little blue (eight kilos of it) in Newtonards, Co. Down from research, investment and a kickstarter fund, with raw milk from a single herd, piercing the body and developing the blue. Young Buck has bravado.

I saw a lovely, older, delicate china like woman taste some of it and lean back and laugh a little like she had had a private joke: “It is so fruity, it tastes like beer”. She loved it, In that little bite she had had a sneaky pint on her way to meet her daughter; innocent but not. As so is Young Buck, innocent but not, naïve but with reasoning, ambitious but with potential.  It has been described as a fruity Belgian beer, Cadbury’s Turkish delight, Lactic, Acidic, Milky, Blue, and or, Sweet.  Young Buck is exactly like a teenager with so many characteristic waiting to be developed and some to be knocked on the head.  However it is fascinating now, fun now; grown up in self-perception but with space for maturity.  Young Buck has character, it has charm.

One day it will come, no longer presumptuous, to your door and that teenager you enjoyed will be gone and you will be eating on different terms. It should not taste like Stilton or Stitchelton, what would be the point of copying these great Blues? But it should be, it will be, its own - a first great raw milk blue to come from Northern Ireland.

What is in its name? Young Buck, apparently Michael Thomson liked the line in a movie and so christened his cheese- but I think that there was something more at play. I have heard tell of Young Buckaroos in Co. Sligo, young men who think that they know where they are going, believe, move over mate, that they are practically there….. and sure, how else would you get on?

Rollin’ rollin’ rollin’

Get those wheels rollin’

Keep those Blues a growin’

Buck On, Rawhide!

Touching Triskel and Chasing Truffles

 It tasted so good - you would have loved it; 

        It was so deliciously brave - you should have tried it; 

              It was so perfectly itself- if you've missed it, you've missed out.

Life is a truffle hunt.
Nigel Whitehouse. Telegraph

This is a post is about Truffles, about those momentary harmonies of events, times and appetites that come together to create something particular and beyond the control of market or man. This post is not about the famed golden fungi or the loved dolphin. This post is about being there and for those who were not, it is about ineffable truffles that come from experience, this post is about Triskel.

I have heard a few times of a legendary restaurant in Sligo, perhaps you have too? Perhaps you have already guesed that I am referring to Truffles? Like so many good things, it happened in the 1990’s. To put the restaurant into context, the Irish countryside then was not particularly known for its affluence or for its readiness to spend money beyond on necessities of church, pub and Trocaire and yet Bernadette O’Shea opened a pizza restaurant on The Mall in Sligo. 

Mustard Seed, Chez Hans, good restaurants were few and far between and not for the many.  In the popular dialogue, people might praise a pub for its Guinness and a house for its generosity but inventiveness and culinary interest often stopped with the story of what happened on the way to the butcher, an Irish Breakfast or Ballymaloe.  And yet Truffles had pizza that thrifty families would drive miles for.  Its pizza capitalised on Irish ingredients and, like a Michelin star brazened chef, Bernadette O’Shea was unafraid to use local ingredients like local celebrities. There were Leek and Black Pudding Pizzas, Pizzas with Milleens cheese, or the infamous Cabbage Pizza- yes you will eat your vegetable. Eyes still glow with hunger when they attempt to describe the pleasure. As with the best endings, the restaurant never failed, local appetites never withered, its founder turned to other things and all those who had ever eaten there were left with the precious memory of Truffles.

We have our own Truffles in the cheese world. Not truffled cheese, but truffles of cheese, cheese

rarities that are now legend. Maybe you chanced to try it but I have only ever heard,  numerous times of the Mine-Gabhar made by Luc and Ann Van Kampens in County Wexford in the 1990’s and early 2000’s. Heads tilt is soft respectful remembrance of the little goat cheese that conquered Irish and British palates. Now, in my own time, I am witnessing and tilting my head for Triskel.

Triskel is an Irish baa-baa to the Loire Valley goats and the eternal request for chevre. Triskel is the family name to the different raw milk goat’s cheese made by Anna L’Eveque in Portlaw Co. Waterford.  The cheese drew on her French heritage and brought the freshness and delicacy of French Goat’s Cheese to the Irish markets without needing to leave the country. Anna made crottin, pyramids, fresh goat logs that tasted like snow and even ventured into more complex affairs that reminded me of the sublime Louvie-Juzon. Anna L’Eveque’s turns with Triskel began when, in her studies, she helped care for herds of goats and started making cheese; she continued with the cheese and, in order to secure her milk supply she took on a herd of goats (aka...adopted thirty kids). Ely Wine Bar’s host said that they were his fall back whenever he had need,  Mongers were delighted to present this side by side with the French classics, and maybe a little ahead. The taste was clear, fresh, rich without being heavy and soft with a definite nudge, sometimes butt, from a goat.  

Triskel was never without a market but it has proved, sadly and gloriously a creature of time. Anna L’Eveque recently announced that she would finish making goat’s cheese with this milking season.

Word has just begun to get out, it will be a long time before people stop asking for it and a forever before we forget the deliciousness and the braveness of it.  For everyone and everyone else, it is that moment that you savoured or it was that moment that you missed. Did you taste it? It was a Truffles.

Pairing and Libations:

Sancerre or a crisp fresh white wine.
Cider, dry and lightly fruity
Fresh Figs
Fig Compote
Charcoal Crackers

More of Truffles - Bernadette recently opened a restaurant in Dromahair, Co. Leitrim called Luna and (in the 90's) published a fantastic cookery book called, Pizza Defined.
Hungry Breton in Ireland has done a wonderful post on Triskel (and others).

Crozier Blue

Surely we could say Ireland has more seasons than it did before? That Autumn’s colours are no longer found solely in crates holding cider apples crops or confined to the meandering lines of uprooted carrots and beetroot and the odd wanderer’s scarf. Nor are our summer shorts reserved for holidays abroad and those immune to reason teenagers set loose at night.

There are glorious autumn colours in our trees, thick slanted sunlight highlighting golds and yellows with occasional flashes of tropic red and ready peach, earlier there were even ripe plums.  In the summers we drank caipirinhas and had barbecues wearing shorts and loose cotton shirts – not even needing to shiver by the grill, waterproofed and smiling resilient in the rain.

Summer and caipirinha references might seem a stretch of context in this colder weather but it is deliberate. As with these brighter more illuminated seasons, we are in a new context, a new burgeoning. Ireland of recent years has had new vibes brought to its populace and their habituals through the changing of the seasons - but also through curiosity and travel, immigration and experimentation.

(How does this relate to cheese? Almost there..)

Picture from Neal’s Yard Dairy’s Site

New seasons and seasonal, Ireland is known for its mountain lamb but you would have been given the local pub its craic for the night if you had tried to milk ones of those poor craitures… sure you might as well have gone for the ram. Ireland was not known for milking sheep breeds or sheep milk cheese - until recently. To name a few we have: Cratloe Hills, Cais na Tiré, Knockdrinna Meadow and one (and only one) mighty Blue – Crozier, from Tipperary. 

Curiosity and experimentation: In 1993 Cashel Blue makers Jane and Louie Grubb brought over just enough sheep milk from the English Berswell herd to make one sheep interpolation of Cashel Blue.  It tasted like we need to make another round.

from the Tipptatler… who knew?

Immigration and travel: the Grubb’s cousins, the Clifton Brownes brought over a small number of milking Friesland Sheep and crossed them with some of their own. Add a few years, an adventurous learning curve and there is now a herd of 400 milking Sheep grazing the grass above the rich limestone beds of Ballinamona Farm within sight of the Rock of Cashel. It is a great site.

It is a fabulous sheep cheese. They have even managed to sell it to the French. Crozier (named after the Shepherd’s staff) is not as assertive as Roquefort but when it is ripe, it is rich, piquant from the blue with a light fattiness and saltiness that I love to find in Sheep’s milk.  Ireland produces wonderful sheep milk – it is no wonder that our lamb has always been so good. When it the cheese is young or not quite as in season, it can be a little saltier and drier without the richness of the matured in season milk curd to carry it through, but seasons come (for some cheese it can be a couple of times each year) and the good news is that Crozier Blue is coming into one of its peak periods of the year right now.  Summer milk, long maturation…and we into our cooler nights, it is time for some of this heartening and not for the faint hearted cheese.

Steve McQueen

Something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue 

(…it fitted to well, I had to).

Beloved libations and pairings:

Cider: I do not mean Bulmers, try fruity, light Normandie style cider, Craigie’s Dalliance or Ballyhook Flyer or Longueville House’s - I would love to try it with the Longueville Apple Brandy.

Wine: Sauternes, Vin Santo, Port or, for the younger cheese, a Reisling with a little sweetness. Cashel Blue's new generation, Sarah (née Grubb) and Sergio Furno have a background in wine and give some excellent suggestions.

For eating, I always like it straight up on a board.

luscious image from WiseGeek

It works well with:

Medjool dates sliced, stuffed generously with the cheese and sealed to disguise the content (you could eek it out with some cream) and popped into a warm oven for 1 min 32 seconds. Some chopped toasted hazelnuts or walnuts could work well here.

Or with momentarily seared fruit  (slices of pear or halved figs) and the cheese, with an eye to beauty, crumbled on top

**n.b. Aesthetic note: Blue cheese does not look pretty when it is heated, so either add it after the other ingredients have been warmed or don’t make its warmed addition visible to eye.