🧀 Cheddar

Cheddar is a hard cow’s milk cheese named after the village of Cheddar in Somerset, in southwest England. Today it is one of the most widely produced cheeses in the world, made in the UK, Ireland, the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and many other countries.

A distinctive step in the process is cheddaring: after the milk is curdled and the whey drained, the curd is cut into slabs that are repeatedly turned and stacked on top of each other. Under their own weight and with rising acidity, they compact and become fibrous. The mass is then milled, salted, pressed into molds and aged from a few months to two years or more: the longer it ripens, the sharper and more crumbly the cheese. Some Cheddars get their orange color from the natural dye annatto. In the EU and the UK the name “West Country Farmhouse Cheddar” is protected for farmhouse cheese from England’s southwestern counties.

Cheddar differs from Gouda in its acidity and firm, slightly crumbly texture, and from processed “cheddar” in being a natural aged cheese. It is eaten with bread and apples and used in sandwiches, burgers, casseroles and sauces.