Not all Stiltons are created equal….or simply. PART I

I admire a country that takes a food that radiates out from its heart with matured blue green mould and names it the King of the Blues (but never les Bleus mon cher Roquefort). In what looks to be a well chosen English meal, in 1996 Stilton was the first cheese and amongst the first foods, Orkney Lamb, Jersey Potatoes etc to be granted PDO status in Britain.

Do origins matter? How wonderful are accepted myths?

A series of contradictions behind this wonderful cheese, it is English so are we surprised?

Much about the cheese that has been protected and promoted has so little to do with the cheese and the consumption of it. 

Point 1. Stilton village is in Cambridgeshire. Stilton cheese may only be made in the counties of Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire, of which Cambridgeshire is not one.

Point 2. Legend: Stilton was thought to have come from Quenby Hall in Hungarton village (great place names over there in Britain), near Melton Mowbray (see) in Leicestershire. The tale tells that a blue cheese was made by the housekeeper Elizabeth Scarborough and sold exclusively by her son-in-law, Cooper Thornhill at The Bell Inn from 1730 on, in Stilton, on the North Road leading, propitiously to London.

Reality: Subsequent arguments have shown that local cheese tended to be sold locally (see map above), that Stilton village had its own recipes for creamy blues and there was record of Stilton's blue cheese prior to 1730.

"Daniel Defoe, in his 'A tour thro' the whole island of Great Britain' of 1724-27 has; "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."

Next time you are given a Stilton Spoon,  will you say thank you?

Point 3.The Protected Stilton recipe is made with pasteurised milk. Stilton, in all of its debatable origins, must have been made with raw milk; pasteurisation was formalised by Louis Pasteur later on in the nineteenth century. When the PDO was introduced in 1996 the legislation protected it as a pasteurised blue cheese.

There is nothing wrong with my milk

Point 4. Joe Schneideer and Randolph Hodgson are making Stichelton, an unpasteurised Stilton. They use the Domesday name for the Stilton village as PDO regulation disallow them from calling it what it is.


Point 5. Stilton goes well with Port but, despite popular legend, you should never pour Port into Stilton. With hygiene and refrigeration, maggots are not the issue that they were and, look you have just wasted the Port and the Stilton.

Point 6. Despite Stilton being a favoured blue at Christmas time, it continues in its beauty well into the New Year when everyone now avoids it with resolutions to, ‘eat better’. Eat better what?

Point 7. Stilton, while traditionally blue has some relatives, Stilton White (a younger Stilton made without Penicillium Roqueforti), Shropshire Blue (orange by annatto) and some things with dried fruit, we call them eccentric relatives.  This is why people ask for ‘Blue Stilton’; no pretenders.

Stilton, Simply.