A Potted History of Cheese

Fanny Cradock has decided that the time is right. We've been through a lot together. Different ingredients. Different skills. Different techniques. We don't even need to mention all the different colours. We've done it all. Well, almost. Fanny has saved a particularly important aptitude to impart to us until now. We are ready. We are excited. We are cooking with cheese.

Leftover cheese is not something which features heavily in my life, I have to admit. Fanny however has an idea from Ye Olde Days of Old for that challenging time when perhaps my refrigerator is blessed with more cheese that I can handle. My first reaction would be to simply eat it, however Fanny has a much more sophisticated solution should I find myself in such a pickle. Pot it.

For this preserving technique, Fanny chooses Cheddar. First of all Fanny would like to clear something up. A fallacy. According to her, Cheddar was NEVER matured in caves at Cheddar Gorge. They are simply too cold and too damp for the job. Fanny says that English Cheddar is the best in the world. Cheddars of other countries are considered inferior. My Cheddar is Scottish.

Fanny reckons that there is only ONE Scottish cheese on sale which is worth mentioning at all. Dunlop. It responds very well to being creamed down, apparently, with half it's weight in butter and the classic alcohol of the country it comes from, whisky. Fanny tells us that Dunlop was first made in 1688 by a dairy woman, Barbara Gilmour, and is an excellent cheese for toasting or for an imitation fondue. I still only have Cheddar. Scottish Cheddar.

To 'pot' this already inferior cheese, Fanny grates it and adds it to a double-boiler with a tablespoon of thick cream, a few tablespoons of sherry, some butter and quickly scissored chives and tarragon. Fanny stirs the mixture over a gentle heat until it turns creamy and pale green in colour, before adding seasoning. Straight into sterilised pots, packed in well and covered with a covering of clarified butter when cold and then a well-fitted lid. Preserved Cheese. It still will not last long in my hands, but it is a super oomph in the savoury stakes and perfect with toast.

Mmm-mmm-mmm-America

I'm not sure if Fanny ever went anywhere near America, but of course by the time she was pulling the partwork together in the 1970s, America was coming over here with a vengeance. Or at least the food was. So, Fanny being Fanny, she had to include a nod to our Stateside cousins on her culinary ladder, and the American Club, or 'three-decker', Sandwich appears to be it! She scarcely needs to give instructions for it, but simply cannot help herself...

According to Fanny, and according to generally accepted patterns, the American Club Sandwich should be made with toast, sliced tomatoes, hard-boiled eggs, lettuce hearts, real mayonnaise, thinly sliced mixed brown and white chicken flesh and bacon. This appears to be the reason Fanny feels the need to explain it however, as according to her, what can be found in 'less reputable restaurants' is generally anything but!

Wherever Fanny has been tucking into her Club Sandwiches, she seems to have been served 'revolting bottled wallpaper paste masquerading as mayonnaise'. She probably wouldn't be best pleased with my jar of Hellmans then? It is labelled as 'real' mayonnaise however. It seems to get worse, her sandwiches have contained rather tatty bits of outsized lettuce. That's not the worst of it, the chicken has been replaced with scraps of rabbit and one or two rag, tag and bobtails of the coarsest streaky bacon. I'm sticking with cheese.

Fanny reckons, if made well, the Club Sandwich is one of the most filling and most delicious you are likely to come across. The toast must be made fast under a pre-heated and very fierce grill or it will fly apart when handled and somehow constitute a peril 'once again' for people with bought teeth. Luckily I still have all my own, but although my toast is made fast, it is made in the toaster.

As I'm avoiding the chicken and the bacon, I need not pay heed to Fanny's advice that they be economically used, with the chicken the merest shards from the carcass and the bacon definitely not in brine. My cheese slices are fresh from the pack, and on offer (two for £2) at the supermarket, surely that will do. Fanny might approve after all, she says at the end of the day practically anything can be made to make a Club Sandwich. Being American, they simply cannot be considered to be 'classic' and therefore we can do anything we like with them. Thanks y'all.

Any leftovers left over?

Everyone is considering 'healthy eating' options after the festive season, but not Fanny. Thankfully. Me neither, I want to eat glorious comfort food for quite some time yet. Fanny's more concerned about using up the last scraps of Christmas Fayre in tasty ways and dedicates the entire Part 15 of the partwork to 'Christmas Leftovers', or as the Belgians call them, 'l'art d'accomoder de reste'! According to Fanny, leftovers, like the poor, are always with us and what better place to start than with the cheese board. After all, so many of us have bent over backwards to give our families and friends an impressively cheesy selection on Christmas Day. However, Fanny suggests, our families are then lumbered with an accumulation of bits of cheese which get sadder and sadder as the days go by. I'm sad enough that the Christmas Tree has come down, I don't want sad cheese as well.

Before tackling some cheese recipes, Fanny takes a quick tour of the Christmas Buffet table to suggest, or rather remind us, of some leftover ideas. It's like a blog review of the year really. Fanny admits that it is not possible to predict, without being a clairvoyant, which of her glorious suggestions will remain to be transformed, so she gives some general advice. Any leftover meat, potatoes and bread can be transformed into Pitt-y-Panna, Poor Mans Pizza, Croques Monsieur or Torrijas. Any number of soups can be created with exciting winter vegetables left lurking about. Mincemeat can be transformed into a Soufflé with ease and speed. Potatoes easily fancied up, and anything sweet makes an omelette. Even, if like Fanny, you've made too lavish a fruit basket for Christmas Dinner, those stray pineapples can be frittered. So, no need for clairvoyance, just skip back through Fannys' recipes and all will be well.

Now that that is all clear, Fanny moves back to that poor old Cheese Board. What if you have some sad, neglected hard cheese lying about. What can you do to cheer it up? You can probably hear me shriek with delight as Fanny unveils her Fried Cheese. Yes, cheese, that's fried. In batter. Hurrah.

The batter is a new one on me, but you know, its not a time to hang on to old traditions. Just a couple of tablespoons of flour and an egg, separated. The yolk is beaten into the flour with a spoonful of very cold water and beaten and beaten until smooth but still very thick, with a little seasoning. Fannys only advice is that it should be too thick for a dipping and coating batter. But worry not, just before the frying begins it's transformed into a batter that IS suitable for dipping and coating by whipping up the egg white until its very stiff and blending the two. It looks like a lovely batter in the end, light and golden coloured.

Fanny says the cheese can be Gruyère, Emmental, plain old Cheddar or even processed cheese. Whichever looks the saddest on the cheese board I'd say. For me it's Cheddar. Fanny cuts her cheese into triangles, which seems very jolly indeed, so I do too. It's passed into the batter and slipped straight into hot, but not too hot, oil. This allows the cheese to soften inside by the time the batter has puffed up and has become golden brown. Fanny suggests arranging the triangles on a napkin covered dish and sprinkling with parsley and paprika before presenting it as in her picture. However the photographer didn't get the memo, it's quite a different picture that has appeared. So Fanny includes a side note that it can also be an 'alternative' presentation which I have recreated. The photographer was presumably fired. The fried cheese is gorgeous, I'm almost ashamed to admit. The batter is light and puffed just as Fanny said it would be, and the cheese soft and gooey. I must make sure that my cheese board always has some left over...