A Cheesemonger's History of The British Isles


Book Description

THE TOP 10 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER Shortlisted for the André Simon Food and Drink Book Awards for 2019 'A beautifully textured tour around the cheeseboard' Simon Garfield 'Full of flavour' Sunday Times 'A delightful and informative romp' Bee Wilson, Guardian 'His encounters with modern-day practitioners fizz with infectious delight' John Walsh, Sunday Times Every cheese tells a story. Whether it's a fresh young goat's cheese or a big, beefy eighteen-month-old Cheddar, each variety holds the history of the people who first made it, from the builders of Stonehenge to medieval monks, from the Stilton-makers of the eighteenth-century to the factory cheesemakers of the Second World War. Cheesemonger Ned Palmer takes us on a delicious journey across Britain and Ireland and through time to uncover the histories of beloved old favourites like Cheddar and Wensleydale and fresh innovations like the Irish Cashel Blue or the rambunctious Renegade Monk. Along the way we learn the craft and culture of cheesemaking from the eccentric and engaging characters who have revived and reinvented farmhouse and artisan traditions. And we get to know the major cheese styles - the blues, washed rinds, semi-softs and, unique to the British Isles, the territorials - and discover how best to enjoy them, on a cheeseboard with a glass of Riesling, or as a Welsh rarebit alongside a pint of Pale Ale. This is a cheesemonger's odyssey, a celebration of history, innovation and taste - and the book all cheese and history lovers will want to devour this Christmas.




A Cheesemonger's Compendium of British & Irish Cheese


Book Description

'Palmer writes with pace and passion ... Full of flavour' Sunday Times A Cheesemonger's Compendium introduces 150 of the finest cheeses from across the British Isles. It is a perfect companion for all of us hooked by Ned Palmer's acclaimed Cheesemonger's History. Each cheese on Palmer's cheeseboard is accompanied by a morsel of history or a dash of folklore, a description of its flavours, and an enticing illustration. Palmer peppers his book with stories of eccentric and colourful cheesemakers and celebrates both traditional farmhouse and modern artisanal cheeses - fresh, mould-ripened, washed-rind, blue and hard. He explains how to buy your cheese like a monger, how to cut and store it, and how best to match it with drinks. The guide is completed by a brilliantly illustrated gazetteer.




World Cheese Book


Book Description

The finest selection: Tasting notes - Over 750 cheeses - How to enjoy The most comprehensive guide to cheese. Discover the flavor profile, shape, and texture of every cheese. World Cheese Book is for the adventurous cheese lover. It takes you on a tour of the finest cheese-producing countries in the world, revealing local traditions and artisanal processes. Images of each cheese (inside and out), step-by-step techniques that show how to make cheese, and complimentary food and wine pairings make this a truly exhaustive, at-a-glance reference.




Cheese and Culture


Book Description

Behind every traditional type of cheese there is a fascinating story. By examining the role of the cheesemaker throughout world history and by understanding a few basic principles of cheese science and technology, we can see how different cheeses have been shaped by and tailored to their surrounding environment, as well as defined by their social and cultural context. Cheese and Culture endeavors to advance our appreciation of cheese origins by viewing human history through the eyes of a cheese scientist. There is also a larger story to be told, a grand narrative that binds all cheeses together into a single history that started with the discovery of cheese making and that is still unfolding to this day. This book reconstructs that 9000-year story based on the often fragmentary information that we have available. Cheese and Culture embarks on a journey that begins in the Neolithic Age and winds its way through the ensuing centuries to the present. This tour through cheese history intersects with some of the pivotal periods in human prehistory and ancient, classical, medieval, renaissance, and modern history that have shaped western civilization, for these periods also shaped the lives of cheesemakers and the diverse cheeses that they developed. The book offers a useful lens through which to view our twenty-first century attitudes toward cheese that we have inherited from our past, and our attitudes about the food system more broadly. This refreshingly original book will appeal to anyone who loves history, food, and especially good cheese.




Cheddar Gorge: A Book of English Cheeses


Book Description

Where can you read about a monstrous cheese big enough to hold a girl of 13 inside? Or that the invention of the bicycle directly, and poorly, impacted sales of cheddar? Or that some of the first cheese makers hid gold coins inside their wheels of dairy as a sales tool?




Lesser Beasts


Book Description

Unlike other barnyard animals, which pull plows, give eggs or milk, or grow wool, a pig produces only one thing: meat. Incredibly efficient at converting almost any organic matter into nourishing, delectable protein, swine are nothing short of a gastronomic godsend—yet their flesh is banned in many cultures, and the animals themselves are maligned as filthy, lazy brutes. As historian Mark Essig reveals in Lesser Beasts, swine have such a bad reputation for precisely the same reasons they are so valuable as a source of food: they are intelligent, self-sufficient, and omnivorous. What’s more, he argues, we ignore our historic partnership with these astonishing animals at our peril. Tracing the interplay of pig biology and human culture from Neolithic villages 10,000 years ago to modern industrial farms, Essig blends culinary and natural history to demonstrate the vast importance of the pig and the tragedy of its modern treatment at the hands of humans. Pork, Essig explains, has long been a staple of the human diet, prized in societies from Ancient Rome to dynastic China to the contemporary American South. Yet pigs’ ability to track down and eat a wide range of substances (some of them distinctly unpalatable to humans) and convert them into edible meat has also led people throughout history to demonize the entire species as craven and unclean. Today’s unconscionable system of factory farming, Essig explains, is only the latest instance of humans taking pigs for granted, and the most recent evidence of how both pigs and people suffer when our symbiotic relationship falls out of balance. An expansive, illuminating history of one of our most vital yet unsung food animals, Lesser Beasts turns a spotlight on the humble creature that, perhaps more than any other, has been a mainstay of civilization since its very beginnings—whether we like it or not.




The Science of Cheese


Book Description

Describes the science of cheese making, from chemistry to biology, in a lively way that is readable for both the food scientist and the artisanal hobbyist.




Cheese, Illustrated


Book Description

A true celebration of cheese, this illustrated book features 50 cheeses from around the world, along with interesting tidbits, tips for enjoying them, and ways to create unique cheese plates for any palate. This delightful love letter to cheese is a delicious companion for any cheese lover and covers everything from favorite standbys (Brie, Cheddar, Gouda) to European delicacies (Manchego, Tallegio, and Tomme de Savoie). Each of the 50 cheeses is accompanied by a sophisticated illustration along with history, tasting notes, and pairing suggestions. Cheese, Illustrated also includes plenty of cheese plate suggestions from around the world, with helpful tips for creating delicious boards featuring a variety of cheese styles. Whether you're looking for a special cheese to savor, several options to share with friends, or just a new way to enjoy one of the world's most perfect foods, this book is just the thing – alongside a cheese knife, of course. CHEESE IS FOREVER: A perennial favorite, cheese is both a comfort food and a way to try new things. It's a favorite snack, a staple for easy meals, a treat to enjoy just for yourself, or a bite to share with others. This book celebrates all kinds of cheeses, from the well-loved to the almost unknown, and offers plenty of delicious ways to enjoy them for years to come. MAKES A STATEMENT: Whether it's displayed on a coffee table next to a candle and some comfy throws, propped up next to a cheese board shared with friends, or arranged with other cookbooks on a shelf, this beautifully illustrated book is just as fun to look at as it is to read. EVERYONE LOVES CHEESE: There's a reason cheese is one of the most popular foods in the world, and this book embraces the timeless appeal that cheese offers to everyone, from the mac and cheese lover to the cultured blue cheese enthusiast. With 50 cheeses to learn about and enjoy, plus cheese boards and pairing suggestions to try and share, there's something here for every palate. Perfect for: cheese lovers of all ages; people looking for a sweet hostess, birthday, or holiday gift for a cheese fanatic; fans of cook's illustrated-style food illustration




A World by Itself


Book Description

A World by Itself is Shirley Guiton's second book about life in the Venetian Lagoon, following No Magic Eden; but whereas that book was principally concerned with the island of Torcello, where the author had made her home, A World by Itself, takes a broader view, encompassing the northern lagoon islands of Torcello, Burano, Santa Christina and San Francesco del Deserto, and considers how the island communities there would react to the technological upheavals of the twentieth century. As she says, 'Though tradition in the lagoon is strong, the forces of change in this century are stronger.' With its astute depictions of the islands and islanders and its moving concern for the future of their ways of life, A World by Itself, first published in 1977, is as ground-breaking as its predecessor. With this book and No Magic Eden, it may be said that Shirley Guiton has done for the Venetian Lagoon what Ronald Blythe did for Akenfield.




Coffeeland


Book Description

A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice “Extremely wide-ranging and well researched . . . In a tradition of protest literature rooted more in William Blake than in Marx.” —Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker The epic story of how coffee connected and divided the modern world Coffee is an indispensable part of daily life for billions of people around the world. But few coffee drinkers know this story. It centers on the volcanic highlands of El Salvador, where James Hill, born in the slums of Manchester, England, founded one of the world’s great coffee dynasties at the turn of the twentieth century. Adapting the innovations of the Industrial Revolution to plantation agriculture, Hill helped turn El Salvador into perhaps the most intensive monoculture in modern history—a place of extraordinary productivity, inequality, and violence. In the process, both El Salvador and the United States earned the nickname “Coffeeland,” but for starkly different reasons, and with consequences that reach into the present. Provoking a reconsideration of what it means to be connected to faraway people and places, Coffeeland tells the hidden and surprising story of one of the most valuable commodities in the history of global capitalism.