None of Your Beeswax

On Saturday, I made Wensleydale cheese for Sir.

It was his special request.

You may well be wondering (if you are reading this on the American side of the Pond) what on earth a Wensleydale cheese is, and I will happily tell you (you must imagine at this point in the proceedings I am standing with one hand on my hip, the other gesticulating in a professorial manner).

Wensleydale is one of Sir's favorites from his childhood in the far north of England: he remembers that the cheeses came shrink-wrapped in thick crinkly cellophane secured with a metal clip that, as a small boy, he found intriguing and a little dangerous-looking. Wensleydale is also a firm favorite of Wallace (of Wallace and Gromit fame) - Wikipedia reports that after the release of Curse of the Were-Rabbit, sales increased by a whopping 23%. That alone is enough to recommend it, I'm sure you'll agree.

But being of an historical/cultural turn of mind, I was most interested in the cheese's provenance. Wensleydale is in North Yorkshire - not too far from where the rels currently live, as it happens - and the cheese was first made by French Cistercian monks who settled in the region way back when (although they used sheeps' milk rather than the bovine article). It is one of the treasures of English cheese-making and there are currently efforts underway to secure its Protected Designation of Origin status from the EU. This means I may have to call my specimen Truckle-in-the-Style-of-a-Wensleydale or Pennine-ish Dairy Product, which, in my opinion, just doesn't have the same ring to it. 

The finished product comes in many varieties, characterized mostly by age, although there is a blue version available. The cheese is crumbly and moist and possessed of a mildly acidic flavor. They are often waxed before their hibernation.

There was quite a lot about this cheese that made it worth yet another Saturday spent laboring in front of my maslin pan. First, of course, was its status as Sir's expressed wish. Sir has proved himself a stirling soul recently, gallantly helping with the heavy lifting and plongeur duties associated with cheese-making and equally valuably staying out of the way when required to do so. I am generally quite single-minded when it comes to new projects (of which cheese-making is only the latest) and I wanted to reward him for his stoical support.

Another benefit was the cheese's relatively short time in the cave: I wanted a cheese that would be ready to eat after the camembert was finished but before the Swiss was ready, and Wensleydale fit the bill nicely.

Also, I wanted to play with a new toy: wax. I ordered a ruby-red block of the stuff from (where else?) the New England Cheesemaking Supply Company and got to work. The destructions said to heat it up in a double boiler, but I had only allotted the one-half hour that comes between dinner and my Monday evening walk for the task and could afford no more time than that.

So I used the microwave (watching the bowl like a hawk to make sure it didn't burst into flames) and got that paraffin/microcrystalline wax concoction up to 225 deg F in no time at all. It took time, burnt fingertips, and all of my patience to get the hang of the dip and flip technique required but I think for a first attempt I didn't do too badly - even if I did miss my walk.

Wax off ...

... wax on.

I should have kept my dipping mixture hotter while I worked so it didn't make unsightly surface blobs and will be sure to reheat often when I wax my cheddar (surprise!) in the next day or so.

I shall secure my new baby in the cave, where it can sit unattended during its snooze. Its wax jacket should provide protection from external infection and contagion whilst keeping the cheese moist and delicious - I read somewhere (a crazy survivalist website, actually) that cheese that has been treated in this way will keep more or less indefinitely, so I am hopeful it will serve as a pleasing accompaniment for the crickets we'll be cooking up in the basement during the next zombie attack.

Or with sweet blueberry chutney in five weeks' time.

Whichever comes first.