WEBVTT

1
00:00:03.480 --> 00:00:11.880
Welcome to Spotlight Advanced. I'm Colin
Lauva and I'm Marina Sante. Spotlight uses

2
00:00:11.960 --> 00:00:17.600
a special English method of broadcasting.
It is easier for people to understand no

3
00:00:17.679 --> 00:00:30.719
matter where in the world they live. Cheddar. For many people, the

4
00:00:30.760 --> 00:00:36.880
word is what they call all cheese
products made from milk. For others,

5
00:00:37.280 --> 00:00:44.039
cheddar describes a special kind of cheese. Often it is found in yellow blocks

6
00:00:44.159 --> 00:00:50.159
at supermarkets, or it is sold
as a product that has been cut into

7
00:00:50.240 --> 00:00:57.719
pieces. These pieces are sold in
plastic bags. In the English speaking world,

8
00:00:58.159 --> 00:01:03.079
it is one of the most popular
cheeses. But Cheddar is also a

9
00:01:03.159 --> 00:01:10.879
town in southeast England. It is
where Cheddar cheese was first made. The

10
00:01:10.920 --> 00:01:15.319
town gave this cheese its name.
But for a long time, people stopped

11
00:01:15.359 --> 00:01:23.200
making Cheddar cheese in Cheddar. The
place that had been famous for cheese was

12
00:01:23.280 --> 00:01:32.680
now empty of cheese. How did
this happen? Today's Spotlight is on this

13
00:01:32.879 --> 00:01:38.959
question. It is about Cheddar.
It is about the town that lost and

14
00:01:38.159 --> 00:01:45.560
found its cheese. People have made
cheese in Cheddar for a very long time.

15
00:01:46.560 --> 00:01:51.400
The land around the town is good
for raising cows, and the cliffs

16
00:01:51.400 --> 00:01:57.680
around Cheddar are home to many caves. It is cool inside these caves all

17
00:01:57.840 --> 00:02:04.959
year, so these are good for
storing cheese. These are also great places

18
00:02:05.040 --> 00:02:12.039
to age the cheese. In this
process, cheesemakers keep cheese for a long

19
00:02:12.120 --> 00:02:19.479
time before selling it. This gives
the cheese a more complex taste. Aged

20
00:02:19.719 --> 00:02:29.039
cheese is often more interesting than fresh
cheese. In these early days, cheese

21
00:02:29.120 --> 00:02:35.800
from Cheddar was not much different from
other cheese. Cheesemakers would use a similar

22
00:02:35.840 --> 00:02:42.199
process everywhere in the UK. They
used milk from an animal. Then they

23
00:02:42.280 --> 00:02:49.800
added a substance called rennet. Rennet
separates milk into two parts. One part

24
00:02:49.919 --> 00:02:57.039
is a solid called curds, another
is a liquid called whey. Cheesemakers took

25
00:02:57.159 --> 00:03:02.240
the curds and pressed them together.
They left the way behind. After some

26
00:03:02.479 --> 00:03:08.520
time, the curds would form a
piece of cheese. This is one of

27
00:03:08.599 --> 00:03:15.319
the basic ways of making cheese,
but many cheeses made this way still have

28
00:03:15.400 --> 00:03:21.439
a lot of whey in them.
This makes the cheese softer, but more

29
00:03:21.560 --> 00:03:28.879
whey means that cheese will go bad
more quickly. In the fourteenth century,

30
00:03:29.120 --> 00:03:35.599
cheesemakers in Cheddar found one way to
solve this problem. They created a process

31
00:03:35.800 --> 00:03:43.080
called scalding. When cheesemakers scald cheese. They heat the curds to a very

32
00:03:43.199 --> 00:03:50.319
high temperature. This pushes extra liquid
out of the curds. The result is

33
00:03:50.360 --> 00:03:55.719
a harder cheese that will last much
longer. They furthered this development with a

34
00:03:55.800 --> 00:04:03.759
process called cheddaring. In cheddaring,
cheesemaker's heap blocks of cheese on top of

35
00:04:03.840 --> 00:04:11.840
each other. This forces even more
way from the cheese. It also changes

36
00:04:11.960 --> 00:04:18.720
the cheese's taste. Cheddaring makes the
cheese taste sharper, and it makes aging

37
00:04:18.879 --> 00:04:27.800
the cheese easier. These special processes
made people take notes of cheese from Cheddar.

38
00:04:28.720 --> 00:04:33.959
It tasted different from anything else made
in the country. Paul Kinstett is

39
00:04:34.000 --> 00:04:41.560
a teacher at the University of Vermont. He teaches about the history of cheese.

40
00:04:41.759 --> 00:04:49.279
He spoke to the British Broadcasting Corporation
about Cheddar cheese's spread. The great

41
00:04:49.399 --> 00:04:56.360
quality of the cheese caught the attention
of wealthy Londoners. They visited the famous

42
00:04:56.399 --> 00:05:01.480
caves of Cheddar Gorge and they ate
local ches. During their visits, they

43
00:05:01.560 --> 00:05:12.560
told others that cheese from Cheddar became
famous from the fifteenth century on. Soon

44
00:05:13.000 --> 00:05:18.720
Cheddar cheese became one of the most
sought after cheeses in England, Cheddar became

45
00:05:18.800 --> 00:05:25.399
the cheese of the upper class.
King Charles the First was an English king.

46
00:05:25.959 --> 00:05:31.560
He ruled the country from sixteen twenty
five to sixteen forty nine. During

47
00:05:31.639 --> 00:05:38.000
this time, there was a great
demand for cheddar. People liked it so

48
00:05:38.240 --> 00:05:45.560
much that the king decided only he
and his court could order it. The

49
00:05:45.600 --> 00:05:50.720
popularity of Cheddar cheese continues to last
until this day. That the town that

50
00:05:50.879 --> 00:05:56.639
gave the cheese its name did not
benefit from this popularity for very long.

51
00:05:57.600 --> 00:06:02.879
Cheddar is a small town, could
not produce enough cheese for everyone, so

52
00:06:03.279 --> 00:06:10.519
other towns began to make their own
cheddar. People from England also moved to

53
00:06:10.600 --> 00:06:16.879
other countries. They brought the secret
of making Cheddar cheese with them. Places

54
00:06:16.920 --> 00:06:25.360
in the United States like New York
and Vermont became famous for their cheddar factories

55
00:06:25.360 --> 00:06:30.839
appeared. These made Cheddar cheese too. Mass production meant that people could sell

56
00:06:30.959 --> 00:06:38.920
Cheddar cheese all over the world.
Cheesemakers in Cheddar could not compete. The

57
00:06:38.959 --> 00:06:46.920
fame of its cheese grew the town
did not. But it was not competition

58
00:06:47.240 --> 00:06:55.439
that ended cheesemaking in Cheddar. Instead, it was a war During World War

59
00:06:55.519 --> 00:07:00.920
II, Nazi Germany attacked the United
Kingdom. The UK is an island.

60
00:07:01.319 --> 00:07:08.199
It became difficult to get supplies from
outside, so the food they had was

61
00:07:08.319 --> 00:07:15.279
limited. During the war, the
government created a rationing system. This meant

62
00:07:15.439 --> 00:07:20.879
that everyone could only buy a small
amount of food. The government also took

63
00:07:20.920 --> 00:07:28.759
control over much of the food production. The government bought all milk on the

64
00:07:28.879 --> 00:07:34.839
market and they made it into their
own kind of cheese. Many people called

65
00:07:34.879 --> 00:07:42.199
it government cheddar, but it did
not taste much like cheese from Cheddar,

66
00:07:42.800 --> 00:07:49.120
and it was not made in that
town. Rationing helped people survive the war,

67
00:07:50.000 --> 00:07:57.160
but it also destroyed small cheesemakers.
Before World War One, there were

68
00:07:57.199 --> 00:08:03.160
over thirty five hundred small cheese businessnesses
in the UK. By the end of

69
00:08:03.240 --> 00:08:11.319
World War II, there were fewer
than one hundred. But cheesemaking traditions did

70
00:08:11.360 --> 00:08:18.920
not die completely. In the nineteen
nineties, small dairy farms began to make

71
00:08:18.040 --> 00:08:26.040
cheese again. They returned to old
methods. Many returned to the places where

72
00:08:26.040 --> 00:08:33.679
people made cheese. Historically, the
cheeses they make cost more than industrial cheeses,

73
00:08:33.279 --> 00:08:39.799
but for many the price is worth
it. Cheddar is one place that

74
00:08:41.000 --> 00:08:48.919
saw a return of farmhouse cheese.
John and Catherine Spencer are two English cheesemakers.

75
00:08:48.960 --> 00:08:54.879
In two thousand and three they started
the Cheddar Gorge Cheese Company. The

76
00:08:54.879 --> 00:08:58.519
company tried to make Cheddar in the
way it was made hundreds of years ago.

77
00:09:00.440 --> 00:09:05.240
They used milk from local cows.
They even aged it in the caves

78
00:09:05.279 --> 00:09:11.799
of the Cheddar Gorge. Soon the
Spencer's cheeses began winning awards. People began

79
00:09:13.039 --> 00:09:18.159
traveling to the place from which the
famous cheese style came. They began to

80
00:09:18.360 --> 00:09:26.320
enjoy this new cheese that tasted so
much like the original cheese. They found

81
00:09:26.320 --> 00:09:31.559
it interesting to see how much the
flavor had changed over hundreds of years.

82
00:09:33.840 --> 00:09:41.559
The changes were great. Industrialization made
Cheddar cheese almost unrecognizable. It made the

83
00:09:41.679 --> 00:09:50.559
taste less complex, but without changing
many may never have tasted Cheddar cheese without

84
00:09:50.679 --> 00:09:56.000
traveling to places like America and Australia. It may never have found a great

85
00:09:56.120 --> 00:10:01.799
name. Without its name, it
may not have come back to Cheddar at

86
00:10:01.840 --> 00:10:07.759
all. In twenty twenty one,
Catherine Spencer spoke to the British Broadcasting Corporation.

87
00:10:11.759 --> 00:10:16.080
Cheddar might have remained a small West
Country product, but it might well

88
00:10:16.159 --> 00:10:24.039
have disappeared, like many local cheeses
have. Its shift to a major global

89
00:10:24.159 --> 00:10:31.440
variety has created international recognition. With
that comes a desire for our product.

90
00:10:33.399 --> 00:10:37.559
It is closer to the original cheddar
that would have been made here hundreds of

91
00:10:37.639 --> 00:10:45.519
years ago, but our success mirrors
the success of cheddar as a cheese in

92
00:10:45.639 --> 00:10:54.799
all its forms. Have you ever
eaten cheddar cheese? Are you willing to

93
00:10:54.879 --> 00:11:01.039
pay more money for small batch products? Is there a type of food made

94
00:11:01.159 --> 00:11:07.720
in your community which many people want
to buy? We want to hear your

95
00:11:07.840 --> 00:11:13.279
thoughts. You can leave a comment
on our website or email us at radio

96
00:11:13.679 --> 00:11:22.559
at Radio English dot net. You
can also comment on Facebook at Facebook dot

97
00:11:22.600 --> 00:11:31.080
com slash Spotlight Radio. The writer
of this program was Dan Christman. The

98
00:11:31.159 --> 00:11:37.919
producer was Mitcheo Azeki. The voices
you heard were from the United States and

99
00:11:37.120 --> 00:11:43.960
the United Kingdom. All quotes were
adapted for this program and voiced by Spotlight.

100
00:11:43.639 --> 00:11:48.000
You can listen to this program again
and read it on our website at

101
00:11:48.360 --> 00:11:56.720
www dot Spotslight English dot com.
This program is called The Town that Lost

102
00:11:56.799 --> 00:12:03.960
Its Cheese. Hope you can join
us again for the next Spotlight program. Goodbye