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My August cheese offering is one for the holidays. One that tastes of long walks along the beach and the beautiful rolling green hills behind, in Cornwall, in the utmost southwest of the British isle. Believe it or not, I did spend three full days there, with nothing else in my diary then „Holidays“. Well, yes, I did check out the cheese counters (and there was a cool wine bar cum shop ;) – therefore: Cornish Yarg. Fuss-free and down to the beaches‘ sandy earth.
Cornish Yarg is a semi-hard cheese made from pasteurised cows‘ milk, ripened for about four weeks, with nettle leaves brushed onto its rind that then starts to be cultivated by bloomy white cultures. It’s a mild cheese, a bit buttery and yogurty, well suited for picnics, kids and the breakfast table – holidays!
It’s said to go back to a 17th century recipe a Cornish farmer discovered in his attic in the 1980s and named after that one Alan Gray (Yarg is Gray spelled backwards). Since 2006 it’s produced in relatively large amounts at Lynher Dairies. The nettle leaves are applied by hand and collected in the wild; apparently stinging nettles defy cultivation. Which goes with Cornwall as such where all those picturesque fishing villages are being inundated and colonised by moneyed tourists and still retain some of their original character.
Enjoy the summer as much and well as you can.
