Thread by @garius

Been a while since I did a history thread, so let's talk about a subject very dear to me:

Cheese

Specifically, how the LAST period of isolation from Europe and enforced austerity almost destroyed the glorious cheese of the north of England FOREVER

Let's talk about Wensleydale.

The Yorkshire Dales produce some of the finest cheeses in the world. They're the product of love, local cheesemaking knowledge and unique geography and weather (which affects local milk, bacterial culture etc).

Foremost among them (to my mind) is a good Yorkshire Wensleydale.

If you're not familiar with Dales cheeses they're white, rich and...

...well look. Just go eat some okay?

Or read this official Government definition. Honestly it's the BEST. Find someone who looks at you the way the author of this looks at Wensleydale.

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/upl…

Wensleydale has been made in the Dales since the 12th Century when a bunch of French monks rocked up with the recipe

Indeed the cheese's first crisis came when Henry VIII, God's own Brexiteer, dissolved the monasteries. Luckily, when the monks left the farmers made it themselves

Or, more specifically, the farmer's wives.

The role played by women in the history of British cheeses is often MASSIVELY overlooked. Cheesemaking was normally their responsibility. They made it, improved it, defined it and ensured that glorious, glorious British cheese thrived

ANYWAY ~~wobbly lines ~~ jump forward to 1897 and the first major creamery is founded (it's still going @wdalecreamery). The goal is to improve the overall quality of Wensleydale without killing local traditional production of Dales cheeses.

Other creameries follow.

MORE ~~wobbly lines~~ and we're now in the late 30s. Wensleydale has just survived another brush with death, thanks in no small part to Kit Calvert, the 'King of Wensleydale', who fought tooth and nail to keep it being made locally throughout the depression.

Then WW2 happens 😭

WW2 brings with it isolation, the Battle of the Atlantic and rationing. Britain is alone and friendless. It has to turn on its own resources to survive.

And the first culinary victim of scarcity (and austerity) is always variety.

So the Ministry of Food implemented rationing.

Under UK WW2 rationing, the Ministry decided that ONLY dry-salted, low moisture cheeses that would travel well could be sold/rationed.

Suddenly, only FOUR types of cheese were allowed to be made.

Cheddar, Cheshire, Leicester and Dunlop.

No Dales cheeses. No Wensleydale. 😫😳😭

Facing the death of Dales cheeses, The Wensleydale Cheese Joint Conference meet with the Ministry. How can they get on the ration books, they ask?

Change Wensleydale, they're told. Make it less moist. Make it more generic. They reluctantly agree.

'Austerity Wensleydale' is born

It was a devils pact, but the only way to survive. Four acceptable cheeses became five. Wensleydale was added to the list.

But it came at ENORMOUS cost - the smaller farms, and most critically the women who worked them now men were at war, just stopped making proper Dales cheese

Now if rationing had ended immediately after the war, and if so many people hadn't died, this might not have mattered. But that didn't happen.

Rationing lasted until 1954 (boo) and WW2 helped begin a change in the working roles and opportunities for women (YAAAAY!)

So ~~~wobbly lines~~~ mid-1950s. The Milk Marketing Board want to bring all the cool cheeses back. Remember Kit Calvert? The King of Wensleydale? They ask him to bring back Dales Cheeses.

With a heavy heart, he tells them:

"Real Wensleydale cheese died in the early 1940s."

Kit had been to all 176 pre-War makers. Austerity Wensleydale had broken them:

"They were proud people, proud of the skill which had been handed down from generation to generation. There was all hell let loose in the dale and eventually they just chucked it, one after the other"

Rationing had brought with it some huge improvements in the cheese industry (including pasteurisation) but it had gone on too long. The old ways of making Wensleydale (and small cheeses in general) were either forgotten, or those who knew them refused to return to cheesemaking.

And this is Wensleydale's tragic secret: one shared by other great British cheeses:

The cheeses we have now are often the result of extraordinary cheese archeology. They are often because places like @CourtyardDairy and independent farmers have fought to rebuild lost cheesecraft

Modern Yorkshire Wensleydale is amazing, and unique. So unique that in 2013 the EU gave it protected status.

But it was birthed through DECADES of painful efforts to rediscover a lost art. theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2…

So what's the point of this thread?

We are a nation of blessed cheesemakers and the history of British cheese is MORE INTERESTING AND COMPLEX than you think.

And yeah, to point out that anyone who thinks cheese ISN'T relevant to Brexit needs to think very Caerphilly about that.

Because just as those French monks introduced Wensleydale way back in the 12th Century, WE DON'T KNOW what people in a few centuries will also think of as no-brainer, brilliant British (or even YORKSHIRE) cheese. Want my guess?

Yorkshire Squeaky Cheese yorkshiredamacheese.co.uk/index.php?rout…

Razan Alsous was a Syrian refugee who ended up in Yorkshire. To support her family, and missing the cheeses of Syria, she founded Yorkshire Dama Cheese. @YorkshireCheese. Their cheeses are amazing.

So remember: British Cheese is awesome. And it is more complex than you think.

Hope you enjoyed this history thread! If you did, you may enjoy my ongoing Brexit Adventures, which start WAY BACK here:

https://twitter.com/garius/status/1062983853260918784

You can also buy me coffee here: ko-fi.com/garius

Be warned though, I may actually spend it on cheese.

ADDENDUM:

There's not much online about cheese history (particularly in Yorkshire), but this is a good place to start. I'm grateful to them for the Kit Calvert quotes. blog.yorkshiredales.org.uk/traditional-ch…

SECOND, SWEARY ADDENDUM:

Anyone who thinks caring about good cheese is 'elite' can go fuck themselves.

(And should probably stay away from the Dales)

(oh, and I blame you for this thread @cstross. I'd managed to avoid the whole elite cheese nonsense until you tweeted about it)