Marmite Cheese - Love it or Hate it!

Even though this is not a classic cheese, I bought this one with high hopes. It was one of those situations when you inwardly prepare yourself for a rush of enjoyment. After all, I LOVE Marmite, and I LUUUUUURRRVVVEEE [Yahoo! Boom!! Brrrat-brat-brat! Boiiinngggg!!] cheese! (I’m sure you didn’t need me to impart that knowledge again!)

They say that when you eat Marmite, you either love or you hate it. My mum used to find me sitting on the side with my legs crossed and a tub in front of me, eating the gloopy black goodness with a spoon. I’d look up, twitching on a yeast high, “I know… I’m naughty…” my return glance would seem to say. To me it’s like black gold (thick black gold), Texas tea (I’m guessing they drink tea black in Texas). Throughout the years in between then and now, I have used it on dippy soldiers with my soft boiled eggs and in numerous sandwich combinations and it has never failed to improve what it was added to.

My presumption was obvious then. Marmite and Cheddar cheese fused together would more than equal the sum of its parts and create a new British beauty – just like the blue cheese flavours dispersed through a brie-like cheese gives you something like the Cambozola. This apparently is not always correct. Something not so perfect happens when they come together like this. It’s not that I hated or even disliked the cheese, but I would much rather jam a wedge of cheddar and a splodge [good word!] of Marmite into a bun. It is made with a mild cheddar from Somerset and I can imagine tastes very good melted in toasties, but I think needs to be 'suited' in that way. That said, when it was introduced to the British public during Christmas 2009 as a gimmic, it proved a great success, so don't just take my word for it!

That said, it was worth the try, and I would still probably give it a 5/10 on the basis that I love Marmite so much. The cheese puritans out there are probably laughing and saying “I told you so”. Well you win this round ‘pureys’! But some of these new blends give the ancient cheeses a run for their money. And I will seek and find them - mark my words...

Leerdammer - smooth and holey

Take yourself back to when you were a wee willy winky (young child). The world is new, magical and wondrous. Your experiences of life are made richer and more interesting every single day as you discover fresh new smells (like cut grass and petrol stations), weird consistencies (like jelly and blancmange) and some of those magical, inexplicable things that the infantile mind is intrigued by (belly-button fluff).

Your inquisitive and information-hungry young mind seeks input from any place it can. The most accessible sources of information tend to be drawn from (1) story-time before bed, (2) tales from friends on the school playground (which have usually been exaggerated beyond measure through Chinese-whisper), and, of course, my personal favourite (3) cartoons.

I may have become acquainted with Leerdammer cheese later on in life, but somehow I can still feel nostalgic about it. It reminds me one of the first impressions I had of cheese picked up from cartoons like Tom & Jerry. All the cartoons do it - yellow pungent cheeses full of holes, whose wavy scents usually lure mesmerised mice into mouse-traps. The only difference is that Leerdammer is not a strong cheese. It is semi-soft and quite mild, and although doesn't have the deep flavours of some of the blues,  I love it. Especially on crackers. And also, much as I have a soft spot for the Dutch football team who for so long have brimmed over with skills but underachieved in major tournaments (like England!), I find myself warmed to this one. Cos let's face it, the French and the English are the heavyweights in world cheese - it's good to see some other nations stepping up to contend. I'll give it a 6 out of ten. This doesn't mean that I don't rate it of course, but I have high expectations!

The other early association I made with cheese was the moon. I haven't yet found one that's like the moon though. There's still time...

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!