Quick history lesson
Even if you are not one for history, this is an interesting story and explains why some Lancashire cheeses taste fantastic, whilst others might not appear so special.
Before the war there was just one recipe for Lancashire cheese, which was used on a number of Lancashire farms and creameries. Very little or no starter was used and the curd built up natural acidity overnight before it was salted and milled. Nothing hurried it. The summertime was the main season for cheese making when the pastures were lush and the milk rich in flavour. The cheese was stored and sold at anything from two weeks to six months depending on how much stock there was.
During the war all of our milk had to be sent into the creameries for the land girls to make cheese from. Looking to speed the process up, lots of starter was added to avoid the need to wait for the natural acidity to build up. The girls could make this new Lancashire in four hours instead of 24 hours. What they made was something quite different – a bright white cheese with a crumbly texture and a sharp acid flavour.
After the war, cheese making returned to normal, but many of the factories started to adopt the mass produced wartime recipe, leaving farmhouse cheese makers to return to the original, less hurried method. But all the cheese was called Lancashire regardless of the method - it was a bit of a muddle!
The Butler family stuck to the traditional recipe for Lancashire of course, which is why our cheeses are so tasty. We do however have three different types of Lancashire, CREAMY, CRUMBLY and TASTY - each with its own characteristics and flavour. But you can be sure that they are all REAL Lancashire cheese made at our rural Inglewhite Dairy, with nothing changing the recipes since Richard and Ann used them back in 1932.
