We Should Celebrate Stilton — And Not Just At Christmas

Food snobs have always been food snobs: even in 1726, when the botanist and cookery writer Richard Bradley noted the recipe for perfect stilton. "Take ten Gallons of Morning Milk, and five Gallons of sweet Cream, and beat them together; then put in as much boiling Spring-water, as will make it warmer than Milk from the Cow," he began. "All that taste it allow it to be superior to every other Cheese, either of foreign or English Make".

Bradley was a practical man, given to jotting down the best way to smoke bacon, breed sheep and grow herbs. Were he alive today, I imagine he would be gently sceptical of this Christmas's supposed craze for Heston Blumenthal's Hidden Orange Christmas pudding. He knew nothing of Santa Claus or cranberry sauce but he was an enthusiast for stilton, a Christmas habit of uncertain but ancient origin.

To read the rest of the story, please go to: The Guardian.