Love him or hate him, Jamie Oliver does at least raise the profile of good food in Britain and tonight in his "Jamies Great Britain" tour he visits some friends of mine in Somerset, Richard and Tom Calver, who make my raw milk cheddar.

It's on Channel Four TV at 9pm UK time, I just spoke to them and they don't know how long they will be on for (as there are lots of foody goodies in the West Country) but I promised I would give them a plug. They are the smallest of the 3 Cheddar farms that make authentic "proper" cheddar cheeses as recognised by the Slow Food organisation and are really nice people.

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/jamies-great-britain

Talking of good cheddar. Have you ever come across Davidstow Cheddar from N. Cornwall. It's from near where I grew up and supposedly has an excellent reputation. My mum used to work in the testing labs there, so we had a plentiful supply at home .

SKy + will be set to stun...

no no wait... I get confused... set to record

Enjoyed his visit to Leicester last week. Recognized a few people at the market.

Davidstow is one of those cheese "brands" that looks so good at first glance.. a (far too) slick website with photos of a cheerful farmer with a calf, rolling countryside and Cornish coastline like this



... but actually the site is lacking in real content, such as stuff about the chap who makes the cheese, if it's raw milk, photos of the milking shed etc... Then you see that they get milk, not from their own farm, but from 400 local farmers..... and you begin to realise that maybe this is not a farm made cheese at all, but a cheese made in this actual building.



Compared to the guys at Westcombe who make cheese only from their own cows raw milk, cloth bound and larded instead of shrink wrapped in 50Kg blocks. There really is a massive difference although of course the guys at Westcombe and other farms like them cannot make enough cheese to supply the demand from supermarkets so places like Davidstow have to exist. Here's Richard BTW in his cheese store



and a time lapse video of the 12 months maturing time for one of their cheeses (for a bit of fun)

Oh I'm fully aware it is a factory cheese, I used to visit it often.

Reminder! This programme starts in 5 minutes time! (at 10 pm Swiss time)

OK, where were the cheese people? He seemed more interested in the Caribbean influence on British cuisine. Not that I'm complaining, I love Caribbean food.

Well, we got the cider, but the cheddar got a pat and that was it...

Reminds me of so many other attitudes across other areas in the UK - old English just isn't trendy... it's all about "fusion"

I missed this yesterday....i was at the gym


Was the cheddar dry and crumbly?????



cheers
SC

I only managed to see the last 10 minutes... did they not even get a mention? 2 days of filming at the farm.... these TV guys have far too much money!

I guess plain old Cheddar, no matter how special it really is, is just not sexy enough. I think I'll stick with Rick Stein and is food heroes from now on.

Nope, nothing. He was really focused, as Carlos says, on the Caribbean-British fusion. Having said that, myself and Mrs G. were drooling at some of the recipes, especially the Carib-style apple pudding.

Nope, not a clip - maybe it will be in a later programme?
That Carribean food looked sooooo good though- wow.

Give it a few weeks and Levi Roots will have a Reggae Reggae Cheddar for you!

They've been told they are at least in the book about the series and his iPhone app too, whatever that is!