SMILE FOR CHEESE

Cheese is a firm favourite for 98% of the UK’s population and there are some historic and eccentric facts about one of Britain’s favourite, nutritionally valuable foods…

• For her 1858 wedding, Queen Victoria - a renowned cheese enthusiast - was presented with a giant wheel of Cheddar cheese weighing over 1,000 lbs.
• Cheshire cheese dates back to Roman times and was originally said to be made in a mould shaped like a cat, later made famous as the smiling Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland.
• The term “Big Cheese” derives from a medieval term of envy for those who could afford to buy expensive whole wheels of cheese.
• During the early years of his career, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart enjoyed the patronage of an Austrian cheesemaker.
• There was a tradition in Europe called “groaning cheese”. This refers to when a prospective father would nibble on a massive chunk of cheese while awaiting the home birth of his child. The cheese would be eaten from the inside out, forming a giant cheese ring. The newborn babe would then be ceremoniously passed through the hole.
• In 1878, Thomas Nuttall constructed a 60-foot replica of Cleopatra’s Needle from 54 Stilton cheeses. Queen Victoria was so impressed that, when she visited the cheese fair at which the replica was on display, she promptly purchased all the cheeses used in the construction.
• The first ever demand for film censorship in Britain came in 1898 from a mortified cheese industry following a scientific film by Charles Urban revealing the bacterial activity in a piece of Stilton.