Six Must-Try Irish Cheeses
The folks here at culture have been excited about Irish cheese for awhile now, as you can probably tell from our Fall 2012 issue. We are glad to see that others are, too! Hannah Howard at Serious Eats shares a history of Irish farmstead cheeses, plus six of her favorites that you should try. What's your favorite?
The plot of Irish cheesemaking thickened in the 1970s and 80s. By that time, a long dairying tradition had suffered and died at the hands of a few hundred years of industrialization. The country's "cheese" now consisted of processed, soulless cheesestuff.
And then something happened. A revolution, at first ploddingly slow and barely noticeable. A few impassioned pioneers pursued the difficult craft of making small-batch farmstead cheese (which means the cheese is made on the farm where the animals are milked). Since the milk doesn't travel, there is a strong sense of place—the cheese tastes like the pastures of which the goats or cows grazed.
