Lyburn Garlic & Nettle - Mind your tongue!

When the word 'nettle' caught my eye on the label of this one I couldn't resist it. It was new and unusual, and....lets face it....cheese goes with anything.

I have never eaten nettles before. I'm not a moron. (I'm NOT!). My experiences of nettles as a child was one of pain - blotchy sores on my legs after running through a bush of them in the school field. "Doc leaves! Get some Doc leeeeeaves!! Nooooo!!" I would yell, and then frantically rub them up and down my calves upon receipt. These were of course 'stinging nettles', which I'm sure make up only a small percentage of the nettle genus, but my point is that consumption is not the first thing you think of when you talk of them.

I have drunk them before though! At Glastonbury Music Festival late one night. My mouth was turning inward on itself (it seemed) from the all-day cider drinking, so I fancied something a little more bitter. And as is the randomness of Glastonbury, I walked into a carpeted drinks-tent and found 'nettle beer' chalked onto a blackboard menu. It was average as I recall - not an amazing flavour, but I was willing to give it another chance in cheese form.

This was the second cheese that I bought from Newlyns farm on my day off. The Cornish Blue had already proven a good choice so I had high hopes. I went to take a bite and hesitated, wondering whether or not to take a clump of Doc leaves from the field and have them on standby watered down in a bowl - just in case I took a bite and fell back off my chair onto the floor, rigid, eyes widely fixed on the ceiling, my mouth ablaze. Then I thought, no, it carries no kind of health warning so is probably good.

I thought it was going to be quite a potent cheese, but the Lyburn Garlic and Nettle is surprisingly mild and light. It has a soft creaminess to it and what I found makes it work well is that none of the ingredients are overpowering. Instead, you get an interesting orchestra of undertones made up of chives, garlic, paprika, ginger and of course - nettles. I would give it a 6.5. I can't say that it was my favourite, but I still enjoyed it. It's a lovely little blend and I love the faint air of garlic. Not quite enough to keep Dracula from my door, but just enough to keep Edward Cullen away. He's a wimp!

Cornish Blue - World Champion 2010

Zoë and I had a day off today. There was no purpose or intention in our minds when we applied for annual leave, only the fact that the day was going to be preceded by a weekend in Essex and we had spare leave to take before the end of the financial year. Having had a lie-in, played a bit of FIFA on the PS3 and gone into town to get some practicalities done, we decided [as it was a nice day] to have a drive around the country lanes of Hampshire and ended up stopping at the Newlyn’s Farm Shop. I knew there wasn’t much chance of me leaving the place without going through their locally produced cheeses, so I grabbed a basket.

Much like an army doctor moving along a line of new recruits, cupping them and asking them to cough, I side-stepped up the aisle feeling the weight and consistency. I dare say that I examined the cheeses a little closer than servicemen’s’ undercarriages are subject to, looking at the rinds and veins (don’t!) and finally settled on a couple to add to my other wise empty basket.

And oh my word did I pick a winner! Quite literally! The Cornish Blue, I have since found out, is the winner of numerous awards, including the prestigious and sought after ‘World Champion Cheese’ at the World Cheese Awards in 2010. After I slid the knife smoothly through the wedge that I brought home with me and dropped it into my mouth, my first thought was “Boom. This is a champion”. When you think of Cornish ice-cream or Cornish cream teas you are reminded of luscious foods that are rich and creamy, produced by big, fat, healthy farm animals that chomp on fresh grass from the rolling hills. Cows so rotund, that as Maude the Jersey Cow saunters past lazily, the other girls sing to her in Black Eyed Peas style “Hey M! Whatcha gonna do with all that ass? All that ass inside that trunk?”

This cheese is no exception to those other wonderful Cornish flavours. It has a full flavour and - as is said of wine – lots of ‘body’. It is creamy and moist in texture, not to the same extent as Gorgonzola, but in the same manner. Unlike other blues, its veins are not distributed universally / evenly throughout the cheese but gathered together in lines and areas. It has a lovely brown rind and a tangy aftertaste that compliments the creamy flavour. Yep, I’ve decided, I’m giving this a 9. I may regret my loose high-scoring here…but I doubt it. It’s bloody awesome. And I tell you what, I may not have been able to celebrate the English winning the World Cup recently or that the Brits will win the most gold medals this summer, but by-golly-gosh this is one world beater worth celebrating and being proud of!