Welcome to Spotlight Advanced. I'm Colin Lauva and I'm Marina Sante. Spotlight uses
a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand no
matter where in the world they live. Cheddar. For many people, the
word is what they call all cheese products made from milk. For others,
cheddar describes a special kind of cheese. Often it is found in yellow blocks
at supermarkets, or it is sold as a product that has been cut into
pieces. These pieces are sold in plastic bags. In the English speaking world,
it is one of the most popular cheeses. But Cheddar is also a
town in southeast England. It is where Cheddar cheese was first made. The
town gave this cheese its name. But for a long time, people stopped
making Cheddar cheese in Cheddar. The place that had been famous for cheese was
now empty of cheese. How did this happen? Today's Spotlight is on this
question. It is about Cheddar. It is about the town that lost and
found its cheese. People have made cheese in Cheddar for a very long time.
The land around the town is good for raising cows, and the cliffs
around Cheddar are home to many caves. It is cool inside these caves all
year, so these are good for storing cheese. These are also great places
to age the cheese. In this process, cheesemakers keep cheese for a long
time before selling it. This gives the cheese a more complex taste. Aged
cheese is often more interesting than fresh cheese. In these early days, cheese
from Cheddar was not much different from other cheese. Cheesemakers would use a similar
process everywhere in the UK. They used milk from an animal. Then they
added a substance called rennet. Rennet separates milk into two parts. One part
is a solid called curds, another is a liquid called whey. Cheesemakers took
the curds and pressed them together. They left the way behind. After some
time, the curds would form a piece of cheese. This is one of
the basic ways of making cheese, but many cheeses made this way still have
a lot of whey in them. This makes the cheese softer, but more
whey means that cheese will go bad more quickly. In the fourteenth century,
cheesemakers in Cheddar found one way to solve this problem. They created a process
called scalding. When cheesemakers scald cheese. They heat the curds to a very
high temperature. This pushes extra liquid out of the curds. The result is
a harder cheese that will last much longer. They furthered this development with a
process called cheddaring. In cheddaring, cheesemaker's heap blocks of cheese on top of
each other. This forces even more way from the cheese. It also changes
the cheese's taste. Cheddaring makes the cheese taste sharper, and it makes aging
the cheese easier. These special processes made people take notes of cheese from Cheddar.
It tasted different from anything else made in the country. Paul Kinstett is
a teacher at the University of Vermont. He teaches about the history of cheese.
He spoke to the British Broadcasting Corporation about Cheddar cheese's spread. The great
quality of the cheese caught the attention of wealthy Londoners. They visited the famous
caves of Cheddar Gorge and they ate local ches. During their visits, they
told others that cheese from Cheddar became famous from the fifteenth century on. Soon
Cheddar cheese became one of the most sought after cheeses in England, Cheddar became
the cheese of the upper class. King Charles the First was an English king.
He ruled the country from sixteen twenty five to sixteen forty nine. During
this time, there was a great demand for cheddar. People liked it so
much that the king decided only he and his court could order it. The
popularity of Cheddar cheese continues to last until this day. That the town that
gave the cheese its name did not benefit from this popularity for very long.
Cheddar is a small town, could not produce enough cheese for everyone, so
other towns began to make their own cheddar. People from England also moved to
other countries. They brought the secret of making Cheddar cheese with them. Places
in the United States like New York and Vermont became famous for their cheddar factories
appeared. These made Cheddar cheese too. Mass production meant that people could sell
Cheddar cheese all over the world. Cheesemakers in Cheddar could not compete. The
fame of its cheese grew the town did not. But it was not competition
that ended cheesemaking in Cheddar. Instead, it was a war During World War
II, Nazi Germany attacked the United Kingdom. The UK is an island.
It became difficult to get supplies from outside, so the food they had was
limited. During the war, the government created a rationing system. This meant
that everyone could only buy a small amount of food. The government also took
control over much of the food production. The government bought all milk on the
market and they made it into their own kind of cheese. Many people called
it government cheddar, but it did not taste much like cheese from Cheddar,
and it was not made in that town. Rationing helped people survive the war,
but it also destroyed small cheesemakers. Before World War One, there were
over thirty five hundred small cheese businessnesses in the UK. By the end of
World War II, there were fewer than one hundred. But cheesemaking traditions did
not die completely. In the nineteen nineties, small dairy farms began to make
cheese again. They returned to old methods. Many returned to the places where
people made cheese. Historically, the cheeses they make cost more than industrial cheeses,
but for many the price is worth it. Cheddar is one place that
saw a return of farmhouse cheese. John and Catherine Spencer are two English cheesemakers.
In two thousand and three they started the Cheddar Gorge Cheese Company. The
company tried to make Cheddar in the way it was made hundreds of years ago.
They used milk from local cows. They even aged it in the caves
of the Cheddar Gorge. Soon the Spencer's cheeses began winning awards. People began
traveling to the place from which the famous cheese style came. They began to
enjoy this new cheese that tasted so much like the original cheese. They found
it interesting to see how much the flavor had changed over hundreds of years.
The changes were great. Industrialization made Cheddar cheese almost unrecognizable. It made the
taste less complex, but without changing many may never have tasted Cheddar cheese without
traveling to places like America and Australia. It may never have found a great
name. Without its name, it may not have come back to Cheddar at
all. In twenty twenty one, Catherine Spencer spoke to the British Broadcasting Corporation.
Cheddar might have remained a small West Country product, but it might well
have disappeared, like many local cheeses have. Its shift to a major global
variety has created international recognition. With that comes a desire for our product.
It is closer to the original cheddar that would have been made here hundreds of
years ago, but our success mirrors the success of cheddar as a cheese in
all its forms. Have you ever eaten cheddar cheese? Are you willing to
pay more money for small batch products? Is there a type of food made
in your community which many people want to buy? We want to hear your
thoughts. You can leave a comment on our website or email us at radio
at Radio English dot net. You can also comment on Facebook at Facebook dot
com slash Spotlight Radio. The writer of this program was Dan Christman. The
producer was Mitcheo Azeki. The voices you heard were from the United States and
the United Kingdom. All quotes were adapted for this program and voiced by Spotlight.
You can listen to this program again and read it on our website at
www dot Spotslight English dot com. This program is called The Town that Lost
Its Cheese. Hope you can join us again for the next Spotlight program. Goodbye