Hard Cheeses

Coolea is the product of a Dutch family relocating to southern Ireland and devising a new cheese with the local milk to a recipe not a million miles from their homeland’s traditional Gouda. And yes, it’s as good as that sounds. The couple in question, the Willems, set up shop in the 1970s on a farm in the mountains of Coolea, County Cork. Using pasteurised full-cream cow’s milk, they set about making their wonderful hand-crafted cheese – a truly artisan product that has since gone on to win multiple awards.

The cheese can now be found in a number of forms including mature (min. 12 months'ageing) and extra-mature (up to two years). As it develops, it takes on an utterly delicious, fudgy sweetness that marries perfectly with the salty umami of its semi-hard texture. If you’re a fan of Oud Gouda then this cheese will certainly appeal, but it’s sweeter than its continental cousin, less unremittingly savoury. I suspect that this is a reflection of the superlative quality of south-west Ireland’s milk. And of the skill with which it's handled in the dairy and during the cheese-making process. 

It’s almost heresy to say it, but I think this is a case of the modern upstart outstripping its original model. And, as a card-carrying Gouda fancier, I don’t say that lightly. It would certainly have a place on my Irish cheese board (alongside Cork’s washed-rind Gubbeen and Northern Ireland’s Young Buck, perhaps). But it can more than hold its own internationally and wouldn’t be out of place beside a Roquefort or a Brie de Meaux. And that’s praise indeed.

Supermarket Red Leicester is a pretty dismal affair: rubbery, luridly coloured and often lacking any kind of real cheese texture. Basic, sweaty putty. But when you happen upon the wonderful Sparkenhoe, you suddenly realise why anyone would want to eat or indeed make the stuff. Artisan Red Leicester had died out until it was revived by the Leicestershire Handmade Cheese Co. about 20 years ago. Drawing on the historical record and memory of the wonderful cheese that used to be made in the area local dairy farmers, the Clarkes, took milk from their herd of Holsteins, added the cheese’s traditional colouring agent, Annatto (derived from seeds of Central/South America’s achiote tree) and started making the traditional British territorial again.

Theirs is an unpasteurised, traditionally made, cloth-bound cheese, almost unrecognisable to those weaned on the red rubber version. Younger Sparkenhoe (usually around 6 month old) has a lovely nutty, almost caramel-like sweetness and an interesting texture somewhere between crumbly and chewy.

There’s a vintage version, too, that really dials up the umami hum and revels in its slightly drier, almost crunchy texture. You can find it in quality cheese mongers where it can be matured for 12-14 months. The Clarke’s have gone on to add two blue cheeses (Sparkenhoe and a Shropshire) as well as the mould-ripened Bosworth Field to their stable – all made with the farm’s raw milk.

Red Leicester is part of this country’s cheese heritage and it’s wonderful to have a quality version available once more. Its beautiful ruddy looks are great on a cheeseboard and it works well in cooking, too. The fine folk at the Courtyard Dairy (who, incidentally, stock the vintage version) have a recipe for chef Mark Byron’s Twice Baked Sparkenhoe Soufflé. It’s a yes from me.