One of the more delightful aspects of British culture is their determination to cling to the radio as an art form.  Long stretches behind the wheel of the car becomes a seat in a theatre or lecture hall, with the same disinclination to climb out that one has with an audio book—more so because it’s not a recording.

One of my drives across the British southland was accompanied by a long piece on Radio 4 about Stilton cheese, the EU, and the village of Stilton.

Readers of Mary Russell’s memoirs may remember that the young Miss Russell kept an alarmingly ripe piece of Stilton in her sock drawer as an undergraduate, and feared that her sudden and prolonged absence might have a disastrous effect on the wood below.  Stilton is a powerful blue cheese, one of those myriad foodstuffs that are better tasted than smelt.  On a lightly sweet biscuit or slice of apple, there is nothing better.

 

 

However, Stilton is not made in Stilton.  Stilton the village is in Cambridgeshire; Stilton the cheese, according to the officials of the European Union, is 1) a pasteurized milk cheese 2) unpressed and with blue veins that 3) comes from one of three UK counties: Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, or Leicestershire.  Not, please note, Cambridgeshire.

However, Mr Richard Landy, of Stilton (“of” in both senses) protests that Stilton was indeed originally made in Stilton.  Daniel Defoe talked about it.  And just because in the late 18^th century the production of said cheese moved to Leicestershire doesn’t mean that Stilton should be banned from making their own Stilton, and calling it by the name.  Mr Landy has even found evidence of ancient cheese-making in the town, when he was out walking one day and discovered a Roman cheese press in a ditch, where presumably it had lain for 1700 years waiting for him to walk his dog.

Mr Landy is now engaged in a battle with the European Union over the very definition of a cheese, as a village rises up in age-old and rightous indignation against the foreign oppressors from Brussels.  That no one in the village currently manufactures, or even wishes to manufacture, Stilton cheese is beside the point.

Equal rights for village Stilton!

And now, take a look at the Stilton home page, and tell me that your mouth doesn’t immediately begin to water: cheese, figs—and oh my god, Stilton cheesecake!