One of the best food events of the year is the Organic Food Festival in my home town of Bristol which this year is celebrating its tenth anniversary.
It's always interesting to see which products win the dairy section. For quite a few years now it seems to have been a dairy product like a yoghurt or a crème fraîche but this year it's a cheese, Caws Cenarth's Golden Cenarth.
It's a washed rind cheese with a gorgeous undulating orangey rind that looks quite like a Vacherin Mont d'Or. The taste is comparatively mild though - it's washed with cider and the sample I tried had obviously not been allowed to get over-pongy. In fact the one I bought and opened just now could have done with keeping another 10 days or so. But you could see that it has the potential to be spectacularly good.
Caws Cenarth who are based in West Wales not far from Swansea also make a salty blue, Perl Las and a smoked Caerphilly or Caerffili, one of the few smoked cheeses I've tasted that I've actually enjoyed. The cheesemaker is Carwyn Adams (below), grandson of the original farmers and cheesemakers Lizzie Wyn and Leisa Jones, although he started his career as an engineer.
Do you agree with the judges decision or have you tasted a better organic cheese?
3 comments:
Congratulations to Carwyn. I actually sell this cheese at my British Cheese shop in Zurich. I would suggest his Perl Las is a superior cheese, but what do I know?
Mike
www.britishcheesecentre.ch
I liked that too - there was something quite Roquefortish about it. I feel Golden Cenarth probably needs to be taken a bit further in the stinky direction. It's potentially a very good cheese IMHO.
Good for you btw running a British cheese shop in Switzerland. That really is a case of taking coals to Newcastle. Do they appreciate it?
As a chef i found Golden Cenarth absolutely amazing and hope it never becomes too comercial. I dont want it to become smellier - it is absolutely perfect and deserves to win a few gold awards.It is absolutely perfect and i hope the consistancy can remain as good . A credit to the people who make it !!
Thank you all
Colin Nash
The Three Tuns (Bransgore)
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