Q. What is Caerphilly cheese?
A. Caerphilly is a cheddar-type of cheese, originally produced in Wales, but mostly made now across the border in England. It is a crumbly, firm, white, cow’s milk cheese, with a slightly salty flavor. It is not aged for long (one to two months), and is good for melting.
If you don’t have a chunk of it sitting in your refrigerator, Lancashire and the French Cantal are close substitutes.
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Caerphilly cheese is a hard, white cheese that originates in the area around the town of Caerphilly in South Wales, although it is now also made in England, particularly in the South West and on the English border with Wales. It was not originally made in Caerphilly, but was sold at the market there, hence taking the town’s name.
It is a light-coloured (almost white), crumbly cheese made from cow’s milk, and generally has a fat content of around 48%.
It has a mild taste, but perhaps its most noticeable feature is its saltiness. It is rumoured that the cheese was developed over time to provide the coal miners of the area with a convenient way of replenishing the salt lost through hard work over ten hour shifts underground and so was a staple of the diet of the coal-miners.
Caerphilly was one of the many cheeses mentioned in the “Cheese Shop” sketch from Monty Python in the 1970s.
Real Farmhouse Caerphilly production died out during World War II as all milk had to go to the Cheddar factories to help the war effort. After the war these factories started making their version of Caerphilly (initially to help their cash flow as Caerphilly matures quicker than Cheddar), which is how it is mostly known today, dry and crumbly. However, there are now two or three farms making original Caerphilly which is dry in the middle and creamy around the edges.
