I love cheese. I love Wallace & Gromit. The two are not unconnected — Wensleydale sales apparently surged after Nick Park introduced the world to Wallace's obsession with it. I love Wensleydale too, but a good Lancashire cheese on toast, either crumbly or creamy and melted under the grill, sits right up there in my personal cheese pantheon alongside Cantal, Canadian Cheddar and Manchego. I haven't even started on goat's cheese yet.

Lancashire crumbly and creamy — two of the three varieties. My photo, Ramsbottom.

After living in Andalucía for the past 3 years I had forgotten about the crumbly and creamy cheese produced in Lancashire; in fact, there are three varieties: creamy, tasty and crumbly. Tasty is mature, and the other two are young. Three short years and I had forgotten; how did that happen?

There's evidence that Lancashire produced cheeses from the 13th century onwards, and in the 1600s it was transported by river to London. The production and method were standardised in the 1890s and are still adhered to today.

And as my 5 days in Ramsbottom comes to an end, then what better way to end them than with Lancashire creamy on toast. Perfect.

Lancashire Cheese on Toast – and the Great Cheese Debate

If you pressed me on the great cheese debate — and I am happy to be pressed — my position is this: France makes the best cheese in the world; Britain comes a very respectable second; and Spain, for all its many culinary virtues, comes third.

France has sheer variety on its side. Comté, Reblochon, Roquefort, Époisses, a dozen regional blues — and then there is the goat's cheese. The chèvre I encountered during my years in the Limousin was extraordinary. Fresh, rolled in herbs, sold by the farmer's wife at the market, still cold from the morning. You ate it the same day, and it was perfect. Nothing from a supermarket shelf comes close.

Britain punches well above its weight. Lancashire, Wensleydale, a good Cheddar properly aged, and Stilton at Christmas with a glass of port — these are serious cheeses that deserve more international recognition than they get. The French know this, even if they won't say so.

Spain has Manchego, which is magnificent, and Idiazábal from the Basque Country, which is quietly excellent. Extremadura's Torta del Casar — a soft, almost liquid sheep's cheese scooped straight from the rind — is one of the great cheeses of the world by any measure. But as a body of work? France wins. Britain second. Spain is third. I am prepared to defend this position.

Footnote 

This post is part of my Cheese Recipes – The Flexible Chef's Complete Collection — every cheese recipe and cheese adventure from Casa Adora and beyond. Wonky photos, proper food, genuine adventures – The Flexible Chef