Which cheese is best for a ploughmans??

[theclaud]

I don't know why anyone would think a pork pie belongs on a Ploughman's, but since pork pies have been mentioned several times, I'm going to post a gratuitous picture of the one my friend made a week or so ago.

 

[T4tomo]

When we first visited south of France 1982 we were amazed at the variety compared to what the uk had.....it was like being in cheesey heaven.

Whilst its hard to be definitive, France lay claim to anywhere between 1000-1600 different named cheeses, whilst the Britain has a paltry 1700.

fair to say the British cheese industry has had a bit of revival since 1982 though when government cheddar still held sway. Our village shop had "red" or "white" cheese - Cheddar or Wensleydale.

 

[Reynard]

fair to say the British cheese industry has had a bit of revival since 1982 though when government cheddar still held sway. Our village shop had "red" or "white" cheese - Cheddar or Wensleydale.

^^^ this.

It's a legacy of wartime rationing, where in order to make things easier to keep tabs on, and to make sure that everyone got the same, creameries were only permitted to produce one single type of cheese - a medium-ish cheddar.

Farmers were allowed to make cottage cheese if milk from their personal allowance spoiled, but it was supposed to be for personal consumption only. Though I'm sure it was bartered for other items.

Post rationing, it took a long time for the smaller creameries to not only restart production, but also to find a market for their wares, as a lot of people didn't want to venture from the cheese they'd become familiar with over the past 15 years. Which was one of the reasonings behind the Milk Marketing Board "inventing" the Ploughman's Lunch.

 

[FrothNinja]

1000-1600 different named cheeses, whilst the Britain has a paltry 1700

Many of those 3000 odd are tasteless and bland, admittedly I have only tried about a 1000 of them. On the whole the Brit ones are better