The new venue at the NEC at first sight of the regulations seemed to have banned the provision of refreshments by the trade stands and so the Guernsey stand was going to be “dry” as in the end were the Jersey and the Shorthorn stands.
Elsie Fallows our President-Elect does not often take no for an answer!
So she discovered that “sampling” of products could be done and that wine could be served with Cheese as long as the tradestand took “charge” of any drunks! Fortunately my skills as a bouncer were not called upon and we had two interesting days offering cheeses made from Guernsey milk provided by Ernie and Edith Durose from their new Guernsleigh range of Cheddars, Andrew and Sue Hope with their Tiresford Gold Brie and Jason and Katherine Salisbury with their Suffollk Farmhouse Blue cheese.
Elsie helped by Sue Hope on the first day was kept busy cutting samples and I had great pleasure in offering cheese to various members of the “Dairy Establishment” and of course gave our members the chance to enjoy these cheeses.
In addition to the Cheese, Robert and Diane Moore had supplied Clotted Cream from Brymor Dairy in Yorkshire and this also went down extremely well although the strawberry jam proved particularly unstable!
Amongst those to sample the Cheeses were Jim Dickinson from Longley Farms who has a dedicated group of 27 herds of Jersey direct suppliers in the North of England and also buys large volumes of Jersey milk from Milk Link. Jim was particularly taken with Andrew Hope’s Tiresford Gold but felt that to call it “brie” was a mistake as he is married to a Frenchwoman who has very strong views on that subject, but after continued sampling asked if he could take a round home for his “gourmet” wife to try. More importantly he said that given the quality of all of the cheeses then Guernsey producers are selling themselves short.
The new RABDF President is John Alvis from Bristol who hosted a very interesting Factory tour of his Cheese plant when Maurice Durbin was EGCS President, but who at the time was making a Jersey Cheddar on contract for a third party, but was not using any Guernsey or Jersey milk in his own cheese. He now has two Guernsey and two Jersey suppliers and is finding that 10 to 15% blend of Channel Island milk is adding more than expected to the resulting cheese. John was particularly taken with the Suffolk Blue Cheese.
The most surprising cheese was however the Guernsleigh from the Durose family in particular the one that is enhanced with beer!, but on speaking to Ernie last night to thank him, he tells me that the best one was not available as they can’t keep up with demand.
This was a most worthwhile exercise and thanks to Elsie Fallows for making it happen.