We have a couple of new cheeses arriving on Saturday to bolster the cheese counter. We are particularly looking forward to introducing you to the Supreme Cheese Champion of 2022, Ashcombe, from the same dairy as Rollright, and similar to a Morbier, with a distinctive dark line of ash running through the centre.
Ashcombe is a large, flat, disc-shaped cheese that was the ultimate lockdown project. Conceived over Easter Lunch in 2020, Ashcombe was created to help solve the issue of having only one product (Rollright) with a short shelf life and no restaurants to buy it. David Jowett is the King Stone Dairy founder and cheesemaker, and had to find a solution quickly – he had a lot of milk and no outlet. He settled on a cheese with a three-to-four-month profile, using his existing soft-cheese equipment, that was similar to the French Morbier. It’s a rind-washed cheese, mellow, rich and smooth, with notes of hazelnuts and melted butter, and won Supreme Champion at the British Cheese Awards in 2022.
Our other new cheese this week is Pico’s Blue, a famous Spanish blue cheese that has a sticky rind and salty tang with sweet, meadowy notes. There’s a great combination of spicey flavour and buttery texture for this damp weather.
These cheeses join our counter that has 75 different cheeses, the majority of which are Sussex or Hampshire based.