Christmas cake and cheese… why not?

[Tangled Metal]

Two issues with cheddar. UK promoted an inferior cheese as cheddar during the war. This degraded quality but allowed for more cheese being produced due to mass production / industrial scale production. Efficient and possibly capable of reasonable cheese but often doesn't.

The second is that the EU denied the protected status. Reason was that this cheap and nasty fake cheddar was so common that the brand wasn't strong enough (or something like that). Really they should have looked at it like cheddar was the high quality, traditional version of cheese that comes from a unique geographical area. Everything else is cheap cheese type foodstuff that this form of protection was created for.

Up to you if you blame one or the other. Personally I blame both.

[al_yrpal]

In Aldi my favourite Cheddar is their Scottish Cheddar, its superb. Although I do support the idea of protected origin I have eaten various versions of Cheddar in other countries. I used to visit Cheddar to buy Cheddar and Cider. Their sales technique is to get you pissed on Cider before you decide how much Cheese to buy.

Al

[mjr]

Scottish Cheddar is an absurdity. They should give it its own name.

[al_yrpal]

Scottish Cheddar is an absurdity. They should give it its own name.

As is Somerset Brie etc etc… Canadian Cheddar is usually named with its origin and it has its own particularly strong flavour. If they named US Cheddar that would be good, so you would know to avoid it…!

Al

[Cugel]

Two issues with cheddar. UK promoted an inferior cheese as cheddar during the war. This degraded quality but allowed for more cheese being produced due to mass production / industrial scale production. Efficient and possibly capable of reasonable cheese but often doesn't.

The second is that the EU denied the protected status. Reason was that this cheap and nasty fake cheddar was so common that the brand wasn't strong enough (or something like that). Really they should have looked at it like cheddar was the high quality, traditional version of cheese that comes from a unique geographical area. Everything else is cheap cheese type foodstuff that this form of protection was created for.

Up to you if you blame one or the other. Personally I blame both.

History is often a revelatory thing.

In these commercial wars concerning the nomenclatures, taxonomies, schemas, hierarchies and other metaphysical means of differentiating this from that, it's often useful to go to the basic underlying principle. The cheese named "cheddar" was originally a style of cheese determined by making-method, source of ingredient's and other procedural aspects implemented in the region Cheddar. As with champagne, why not use these and other local-to-Cheddar parameters to determine what may be branded "cheddar" and what not?

One reason is that you describe: the world and his cow now makes a cheese styled and labelled "cheddar". There would be howls of protest, especially from the large cheese factories making what is better described as "American cheese" (i.e. not much like cheese of any kind at all except for the whiff of silage).

But a hard & fast definition of "cheddar" could benefit even the cheese factories; and certainly the smaller producers making something that may still be legitimately described as cheese, rather than as "a yellow greasy block of silage-smelling putty". Were one a maker of "cheddar" in, say, Tobermory, one could brand one's cow-curd as "Tob" or even "Morish". Even now I can imagine the fervour of the advertising "creative" as they come up with ludicrously ahistorical and sentimental scenarios extolling the virtues of "tob". ......

Cugel

[Cyril Haearn]

Even a brown cow gives white milk

[thirdcrank]

... UK promoted an inferior cheese as cheddar during the war ...

My late mother was married in 1940 and she learned all sorts of wartime economy things which stuck with her throughout her life eg making "white sauce" with a cornflower paste. There are various proprietary substitutes which may or may not date from that time but are widely accepted as being the real thing eg custard from custard powder and salad cream as a substitute for mayo. I did hear somewhere that a wartime substitute for bacon made from mutton was introduced called macon (not to be confused with Mâcon.)

[mercalia]

since some people here have outlandish ideas what to eat at xmas here is another you can add to your stomach to grumble over

Pigs-in-blankets turned into ice cream

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-46573052/pigs-in-blankets-turned-into-ice-cream-at-hitchin-parlour

[drossall]

I still have white sauce made with cornflour as a treat with Christmas pudding. Only time I have it all year. Is there an alternative?

And mercalia, that's our local parlour. When I've tried my Walkers' sprout-flavour crisps, I'm off to give the ice cream a try too

[thirdcrank]

Re the wartime recipes, my late mother-in-law was a sergeant cook in the officers' mess at the Guards Depot and she made everything in the traditional way, which was occasionally a source of family friction when they rarely met.

Re pigs in blankets ice cream, IIRC Walls began making ice cream as a way of using the surplus fat from their pork sausage production.

[gbnz]

... UK promoted an inferior cheese as cheddar during the war ...

wartime economy things which stuck with her throughout her life eg making "white sauce" with a cornflower paste........ There are various proprietary substitutes ....... eg custard from custard powder and salad cream as a substitute for mayo.

Happy to hear that I'm not the only one who suffered .

My mothers still around and didn't start cooking until the end of the 1940's. I was nearly thirty before I realized what white sauce, custard and mayo really are (Nb. Not even to mention ice cream and all that).

[Paulatic]

I need some clarification here. Just checking no autocorrect has stepped in

TC? Did your mother make a white sauce from a cornflower paste or by using cornflour? If the latter option how else do you make it?
If the first option that’s a new one for me.

[Tangled Metal]

Pigs in blankets panini in a shop today.

Still use cornflour in a macaroni cheese sauce for our son. It's a very very quick thing to make. 4 minutes in a microwave while the pasta cooks. It's a good staple to have for thickening sauces too.

[thirdcrank]

I need some clarification here. Just checking no autocorrect has stepped in

TC? Did your mother make a white sauce from a cornflower paste or by using cornflour? If the latter option how else do you make it?
If the first option that’s a new one for me.

I'd have to pass on the difference between cornflower and paste. I meant that to her, white sauce was made with cornflower. I only ever remember her using it to serve with boiled sliced carrots. (I've since realised you are querying cornflower vs corn flour. Not an auto correct - my slack spelling.)
I came to cooking late in life and I'd use a pint of milk and one oz each of butter and plain flour.
https://www.bbc.com/food/recipes/whitesauce_1298

[fausto copy]

White sauce still made with cornflour in this household, as passed down through at least three generations.
The best way of making a cheese sauce too (just add grated cheese and let it melt).
And although a Cheshire man at heart, I reckon there's nowt to beat Lancashire cheese for cooking with.
fausto.