Picnic Cheese

Things have been too hectic for me to post in the last couple of weeks, so I thought I'd put up this piece, which I wrote last summer.

Most people, when they think of romantic food, think in clichéd terms of oysters and red wine. Slivers of truffle, pints of cream and chocolate to follow, with the occasional chilli for spice and strawberries for the romantic healthy eater.

However, I have neither a sweet tooth nor a soft spot for clichés, so the way to my heart is with cheese. The man who suggested cheese sandwiches and some wine by the lake in St James’s Park had got it exactly right. The only change to be made to his programme was that I insisted on supplying the cheese myself.

Choosing cheese for a romantic picnic is an interesting challenge. It can’t be bland, but it mustn’t be either too rich or too smelly. The cheese will set the tone for the occasion, and there may be implications to consider.

A deliciously runny Brie or a Stinking Bishop is a very sensuous thing to eat, dripping and sticking to your fingers. If you are definitely trying to seduce your fellow-picnicker, that’s a good idea. If this is just a preliminary exploration, and deliberately choosing a public place for your date may be a sign that you’re not ready to get too close, a firmer cheese is less likely to lead you into compromising situations.

The cheesemongers of Neal’s Yard Dairy were well up to the challenge I threw at them: choose me cheeses for a romantic picnic.

The big cheesemonger with the dark beard knew instantly what he thought was right: Parmesan. I said that, although Parmesan is indubitably the emperor of cheese, it might be too overbearing for a date.

My first choice was Flower Marie, which Beardy Cheesemonger loudly scorned. Luckily his contemptuous remarks were loud enough that his colleague overheard and weighed in on my side.

Flower Marie is a velvety white block of unpasteurised sheep’s cheese, with a furry coat, a soft creamy inside going slightly runny round the edges. Made by Kevin and Alison Blunt in Sussex, it has a very delicate flavour – sweet and creamy with just a hint of acidity in the aftertaste. I always think it tastes faintly of spring flowers, but that may just be an association with the name - the vegetal aroma is actually closer to new-mown hay. This flavour, suggestive of early summer and bats flitting through the twilight as the dew is falling, seems to me the quintessence of romantic food.

BCM suggested that my problem was that I had too feminine a notion of romance, and suggested a Chabis from the same cheesemakers. Chabis is a cute little button of goat’s cheese, but a bit too small to develop an interesting character: one ends up with too much of the rind and nothing else but a generic goats cheese mouth-feel coating one’s tongue and palate. Not good for the occasion, in my opinion; I find it hard to feel romantic when all I can taste is the faintly plastic pungency of goat.

To counter the accusation of girliness, I decided to pick a big hitter as the final complement to my al fresco cheeseboard. Doddington is produced in the Doddington Dairy in Northumberland by Maggie Maxwell - check out their excellent website at www.doddingtondairy.co.uk. It is a fruity Cheddar-style hard cow’s cheese, aged for 10-15 months in a wax rind until it achieves a subtler version of the crunchiness and punch that BCM yearns for in Parmesan.

Although it might also be considered a little overbearing, Doddington is one of the best hard cheeses around, if like me you prefer the fruity flavour to the nuttiness of Cantal or Keen’s Cheddar. The other advantage of hard fruity cheeses is that they go wonderfully with honey on white bread. Tearing a morsel off a fresh loaf, crushing your piece of Doddington onto the soft bread and adding a drop of sticky honey to the mouthful before either eating it yourself or offering it to your companion – that’s what a romantic picnic is all about. And if you can arrange for it to happen while watching the pelicans in St James Park, with the summer evening sun filtering through the fresh green leaves and a squirrel sitting a few yards away looking adorable, then perhaps you’ll realise that gooey cheeses aren’t the only ones that can lead you into a compromising situation on a picnic.