According to a report on the BBC news website dated 13th April "a rare Roman cheese press has been found in a ditch near the home of the famous Stilton cheese." It has apparently been dated to the 3rd Century and:
"Archaeologists [un-named] said the press would have been used to make cheese from the milk of either goats or sheep."
No kidding? Not for Venezuelan beaver cheese then?
Of course the Roman cheese wouldn't have been anything like blue-veined Stilton cheese, which only started being produced in the eighteenth century. It would have more probably been a brine pickled cheese like feta. And anyway, according to EC 'protected designation of origin' regulations, even if a stilton-like cheese was ever produced near the village of Stilton in Cambridgeshire it couldn't be sold as blue Stilton cheese. It can only be called such if it is made from local milk at a dairy in Derbyshire, Leicestershire or Nottinghamshire. We know it as blue Stilton thanks to the owner of the Bell Inn of Stilton village in 1730, Mr Cooper Thornhill. He took a liking to it whilst visiting a small farm in Leicestershire and began selling it from his pub.
Personally, I like a small slice of Hartington Blue Stilton, made in the Derbyshire Peak. Mmmm!
(Trivia of the week: a turophiliac is a cheese lover)
p.s. to be pedantic, it should be Gromite, in the vocative, not Gromitus.
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