Fromage ! (cheeses)

I really like tome de savoie, and that is quite low in fat.

And ewe's cheese. I used to buy it in Lincolnshire, as a producer there had a big stall at the market. It was quite like goat's cheese, and also came in hard and soft. In fact jings the original goats and sheep are so alike it's almost impossible to tell the difference. We bred sheep to produce more meat, they used to be like goats.

Actually, you would have to take the newborn lambs away from their mothers, just like they do calves. Would be sad not to see lambs suckling from their mums in fields. Perhaps it is just a step too far - in the direction of factory farming. Ie get all you can out of the animal.

No! Of course I don't "balk at eating roast lamb"!

I thought we were talking milking 'em. again.

And they haven't been milked round here for centuries.

We saw flocks of very large (bigger than some goats) sheep in Italy which were milked in a dairy just behind the village church. They certainly didn't seem to mind!

Sheep have been milked for centuries. There are herds of sheep specially bred for milking. You're just being sentimental, jingl, though I suspect you don't baulk at tucking into a leg of lamb.

I don't quite see how it's being greedy, no different to milking cows or goats. Personally I don't like goat or sheep milk cheese, I find it has an unpleasant 'tang'.

Yes, but we are not the Mongols (re mare's milk)

Sheep are quite little. Milking them is being greedy.

How is it wrong - or milking goats? You can also get horses milk!!

Milking sheep is just so wrong.

Soutra, thanks for not spelling THE word- I just could NOT handle it now in June;)

La Fromagerie just off Marylebone High Syreet is another magical cheese shop if you are in that part of London. DD 3usually does the cheeses for our C****mas meal and as she works quite nearby she always goes there - cheese heaven!

I often use the French Comté cheese granjura - can get it locally and also grated - I now usually buy grated here as most French cheese is almost impossible to grate yourself! I often bake Couloumiers for a lunch too - there is a hotel in Bernay with the Restaurant next door and they do a fab starter of a portion of baked Brie with a salad of some sort. I like hot goat cheese as a starter too when we are out.
I now tend only to use Roquefort in cooking as a sauce and prefer to have Blue d'Avergne as it is not as salty.
A new restaurant has opened near us called Fromages etc Malices which serves only cheese dishes as far as I can see - raclette, tartiflette, cheese platters etc but they do not seem to be doing very well. I think probably a completely wrong location to have that type of restaurant.

Bez in our region (FRanch-Comté) we make morbiflette- same as tartiflette but with Morbier cheese.

Reblochon and Mr d'Or are the same - and they are delicious- even better hot, in a 'Boîte chaude' baked in the over for 40 mins with garlic and local white wine.

I love cheese and the joy of the low-carb diet is that I can eat as much as I like and not worry about the fat content. We eat it French style without bread or biscuits.
I love Stilton, Red Leicester, Wensleydale (cow and sheep), a good Cheddar and Blue Vinney from my Dorset years.
Here in France I like Bleu d'Auvergne, Roquefort, Brie, some of the hard cheeses from the Pyrenees and lots of goat.
I don't really like (lowers voice and looks round nervously) the local cheeses, Camembert, Pont l'Eveque and worst of all Livarot. I loathe Reblochon.
From Spain I like Manchego and lots of their other hard cheeses.
Love Gorgonzola.
When Lidl have their themed weeks we always stock up on lots of cheeses from other countries.

Yes, it's still there Galen, it's where I first tried Stinking Bishop.
There a good market too on a Saturday I think with lots of artisan stalls the last time I went.

In the Basque Country they eat cheese with a black cherry compote - the most delicious things together. The cheese is such as Istara, Etorki. Tomme. Locally I can get the cherries from the deli/ cheese counter and when they don't have the big bowl of it try and fob you off with small jars telling you it is the same thing but it is nowhere as good!
Today I made Tartiflette for our lunch but used a Raclette cheese on the top rather than a whole tartiflette cheese. I added tomatoes to the top layer too.
As to when you eat cheese - our Medicin Traitant (GP equivalent) says that you should only eat cheese at lunch time and never in the evening - I aspire to this but we do not always succeed! If on a diet the amount of cheese is 30gms a day. It is from a French diabetic diet which is good for generally losing weight and from the surprising list of ingredients you are able to make two three course meals and a good enough breakfast. It does not give recipes but the amount/weight of each type of food you should eat at each meal.

There used to be an extremely good cheese shop in Wells. I presume it's still there?

FiL loves that place, he visits it regularly and buys anything that looks as if it is crawling towards him.

Yes, that's the one - Neal's yard is the most amazing cheese place in the UK and only sells the best and in mature forms- and they really know their stuff. Thanks.

Neals Yard in Bankside? That's close to Borough Market.

I love cheese, probably most varieties except very strong cheddar, the type that I call 'gum stinger' cheddar. Can't bear it. One of my favourite French cheeses is a good ripe Coulommiers. I love Pont L'Évêque too and the other usual suspects, i,e, Brie, Camembert, Roquefort. Oh, and Chevre, love that one!
UK cheeses? Most cheddars, Stilton - blue or white, Red Leicester, Lancashire. But with one eye on the high fat content of the ones I love, I usually buy Cathedral City Mature Lighter, which is absolutely delicious and works well in cooked dishes too. What I can't bear are the extra mild cheeses - for which read 'extra tasteless'. Can't see the point in them

What's the name of the massive cheese sellers, with the huge maturing cellars next to Borough Market in Southwark?

Ah, Paxton and Whitfield, in the 1960s I worked just around the corner from them in St James Street, the smell that used to waft from their doors as you walked past was delicious.

By the time I moved on from my St James Street job I had conquered my inhibitions about not being in the P&W and Fortnum & Mason league and had ventured in to both and bought cheese from P&W for high days and holidays and packets of tea in F&W. The staff were always pleasant and charming.

It would indeed Galen! My rubbish typing meant that should have been DH's cousin!! Sadly since Aunt Elizabeth died we have not visited them at their farm (no connection with the chocolate!) but no samples I fear!

I am partial to Cornish Yarg in its nettle wrapping, proper farmhouse Lancashire, and a bit of Stilton. I also like Port Salut and Gruyere but am not otherwise fond of continental cheeses. When I worked in London back in the sixties I used to be sent off to Paxton and Whitfield in Jermyn Street to pick up a regular order for my boss. It was arguably the best cheese merchant in the country. They would let you sample anything in the shop. There was always an old gentleman in there sampling bits of this and that and I was told one day that he was a peer of the realm whose regular habit it was to do this on an almost daily basis. It constituted his lunch (free) but he never actually bought anything. I cook a lot with cheddar (Cathedral City) but we don't seem to use it for anything else.