Also sold at Fortnum and Masons and top cheese retailers Paxton and Whitfield. If you assumed that this cheese from Sue Proudfoot of Whalesborough Farm in Bude, Cornwall, has real character and quality, you'd be right! It's pungent, earthy and soft, its rind washed with local cider. And if washed rind cheese (associated with some of the smellier French offerings) is your thing, why not have a look at Alderwood or Stinking Bishop while you're here?
If, on the other hand, smelly cheeses aren't your thing, check out Miss Muffet, another great cheese from Sue, this time mild and sweet tasting, with a springy texture and a continental quality. Holland comes to North Cornwall?
Vegetarian / Pasteurised
More about Sue and her cheeses
Sue had done a bit of everything - taking free range eggs around Bude in a pushchair, milk churn painting, special needs work, sheep breeding ... then one day about 10 years ago she turned to cheese. And I suppose that's when she found her vocation. Because she's come through the tough learning process as a hugely skilled cheesemaker, good enough to supply Paxton & Whitfied: good enough to supply Fortnum & Mason, and good enough to win Best Modern English Cheese at last years British Cheese Awards (for Cornish Crumbly).
Her four cheeses are closely related, with the recipe varying for each. Trelawney was the orginal - a firm farmhouse cheese that might remind you of Cheshire. Miss Muffet uses the washed rind process which produces a sweet, supple cheese. For Keltic Gold, she takes a Miss Muffet and washes its rind with Countrymans Cider (also from Cornwall) three times a week for five weeks. Tedious, but the result is a real connoisseur's cheese.
And the newest addition is Cornish Crumbly, where the curd is left much more undisturbed (i.e it's not cut or broken up into small pieces) resulting in a chalky texture and lively taste, "a bit like a creamy Lancashire", says Sue.
Originally based on the family farm - Whalesborough Farm - near Bude, success produced a need for more space, so she moved into a new dairy in 2009, but still only a few miles from home.
