Why cheese is as seasonal as fruit and veg

At Suffolk’s Fen Farm Dairy, Jonny Crickmore has been making Baron Bigod for 12 years. It’s won several prizes and drawn favourable comparisons to brie-de-meaux, the soft French cheese upon which it’s based. But this year Crickmore added a new product to his range: Rædwald, a washed-rind cheese similar to reblochon. Unlike Baron Bigod, its availability will be fleeting – from January to April. For years, surplus winter milk was sold on, but now Crickmore has decided to use it for a winter and early spring cheese, one to melt into a tartiflette on a cold night – and a short period of availability could be part of its appeal.

We think of fruit, vegetables and even meat as seasonal, beholden to long-established patterns influenced by sun and rain. But cheese? Cheddar, brie, mozzarella and parmesan are available year-round in the supermarket. Yet cheese can be just as seasonal as spring asparagus or autumn apples, and Rædwald is merely the latest example, a revival of what cheesemaking once was – a way of preserving a surplus of milk available at a certain time.

All cheese was once seasonal, made when cows, sheep or goats were having their young, then eaten fresh or left to mature. Rædwald joins a small board of seasonally made British cheeses, including St James, made in Cumbria from sheep’s milk from January until the end of summer, and Pyghtle, a fresh goat’s cheese produced in Suffolk from April to September. “We can make cheese at any point now,” says Crickmore, “but you do lose something special. The fact you can’t have something at a certain time of year makes you want it more.”

Changing with the seasons

Even for cheeses produced year-round there are seasonal differences. Variations in diets, from fresh spring and summer grass to hay or other dry feeds in winter, can impact milk. In mountainous regions of Europe, cows feast on high-altitude pastures replete with wild herbs and flowers in summer, leading to complex alpine cheeses, which taste vastly different to winter versions of the same cheeses.

The cheeses most famously tied to seasonality tend to be French. Beaufort comes in distinct summer and winter versions, comté changes significantly depending on the milk, and ossau-iraty is made only with sheep’s milk produced from November to July. Vacherin mont d’or, a soft alpine cheese, is produced between August and March, when the cows are down from the mountain pastures and feeding on hay.

As a result, the French are more attuned to cheese seasonality. Emma Young, author of The Cheese Wheel, has worked as a cheesemonger in Britain and France and agrees French shoppers are used to seeing the changes celebrated through the year. “They see the focus on goat’s cheese in spring, the big mont d’or displays celebrating the arrival of autumn, and they have those conversations,” she explains.

The British experience

Seasonality in cheese is something UK consumers aren’t aware of, says Carla Torres, cheesemonger at Farm Shop in Mayfair. Torres encourages customers to explore seasonal variation, such as with Wigmore and lincolnshire poacher. The former is a soft sheep’s milk cheese. “You’ll notice if it’s not made in spring or summer – it’ll be firmer and not so zesty.” Lincolnshire poacher is a cheddar-style cheese with a nutty flavour and pineapple notes. “It can be enjoyed year-round but the best cheeses are made from milk collected in spring.”

Maybe without realising it, the British do occasionally buy cheese seasonally. There’s a reason stilton is a Christmas tradition: made with rich, late-summer grass, it’s matured for three months, just in time for the festive season. To many, the best stiltons remain those in December.

What about goat’s cheese?

In Britain and France, fresh goat’s cheeses are some of the most seasonal of all, delicious in late spring and early summer, when the lush grass lends fresh lemony notes to the cheeses. Yet they’re still popular on the Christmas cheeseboard. Producers achieve this by keeping herds indoors in winter and giving them a special diet. The average consumer won’t notice much difference, Young stresses, and it doesn’t mean winter cheese is inferior. But “in terms of complexity it will be different”.

Vive la différence!

At Fen Farm, the cows’ diet also changes throughout the year. Spring and summer grass provide a darker yellow milk due to their higher carotene levels, Crickmore explains, while winter hay leads to a paler end product. Crickmore tweaks the Baron Bigod recipe throughout the year to create as consistent a cheese as possible. But it has nuances: a rich, golden, gooey breakdown in summer; paler and chalkier in winter. “You’ve got to celebrate the differences, really. They make it more interesting,” he says.

Most cheese is always available, and in many ways that’s a good thing, providing a reliable food source. What separates the artisan and the industrial is seasonal nuance. It doesn’t necessarily mean one is better, but the former certainly has more character and tells a story of the land on which it was made. A cheeseboard is not just for Christmas – but the cheeses on it may be.

The best British seasonal cheese to look out for

You can buy these cheeses from Neal’s Yard Dairy, DukesHill, Paxton & Whitfield, The Courtyard Dairy, The Fine Cheese Company and other good cheesemongers. Photographs by Neal’s Yard Dairy.

Spring

1. Perroche
Made by Neal’s Yard Creamery in Herefordshire, it’s a delicate, fresh, lactic goat’s cheese rolled in herbs, with lemony notes. Great as a breakfast cheese. Vegetarian.

2. Brefu Bach
A soft, unpasteurised sheep’s milk cheese with a fluffy, moussy texture and delicate cream flavour. It’s made in the Snowdonia foothills and changes in flavour from batch to batch. Vegetarian.

Summer

3. Duckett’s pasteurised caerphilly
This light, Somerset-made version of the crumbly classic from Wales is aged for only a few days (they also make an aged version), giving bright, lemony and zesty flavours.

4. Stoney Cross
At eight weeks old, this cheese from the New Forest, similar to a tomme de savoie, is buttery and sweet.

Autumn

5. Cornish Kern
Matured for up to 24 months, this sweet, nutty alpine-style cheese is one of the best of its type around.

6. Montgomery’s cheddar
After maturing for 12 months, this is a bold, complex cloth-bound Somerset cheddar with a long finish and crystalline crunch.

Winter

7. Spenwood
From Berkshire comes this sheep’s cheese with a nutty, savoury flavour similar to pecorino. The best versions come out in winter.

8. Stichelton
Made to a traditional stilton recipe in Nottinghamshire but with unpasteurised milk, it uses (like stilton) rich late- summer/autumn milk and is matured in time for winter.

Next: Discover why chefs are getting their hands dirty for the new era of farm-to-table restaurants.