Welcome to Spotlight. I'm Colin Lowva and I'm Marina Santi. 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 old 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 a bag 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 the 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 chest was not much different from other cheese. Cheese makers 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 whay 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 note of cheese from
Cheddar. It tasted different from anything else made in the country. Paul Kinstet
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 The great quality
of the cheese caught the attention of wealthy Londoners. They visited the famous caves
of Cheddar Gorge and they ate local cheeses. During their visits, they told
others. The 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, but the town that
gave the cheese its name did not benefit from this popularity for very long.
Cheddar is a small town. It 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 two. 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, but the town did not. But it was
not competition that ended cheesemaking in Cheddar. Instead, it was a war.
During World War two, Nazi Germany attacked the United Kingdom. The UK is
an ireland. 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 businesses in the UK. By
the end of World War II, there were fewer than one hundred, but
cheese making 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's 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 cheese 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, and 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 Zaki. The voices you heard were
from the United States and the United Kingdom. All quotes were adapted for this
program and voiced by Spotslight. You can listen to this program again and read
it on our website at www dot Spotlight English dot com. This program is
called The Town That's Lost Its chie We hope you can join us again for
the next Spotlight program. Goodbye,