...and how Henry VIII nearly killed off artisan cheese production!
Many years ago I lived near to Lindisfarne, in fact I could see the island from my bedroom window.
Lindisfarne may be famous for being raided by the Vikings but it's history spans thousands of years and although the monks did leave for a while after the raids, the medieval times saw them return, although in smaller numbers.
Since it was so close, my School often had days out to the Priory and Castle and one particular visit always sticks in my mind. The school decided to make us walk to the island and we would get sponsored for it , bringing in much needed funds for the school library. The only problem with this is that Lindisfarne has a tidal causeway, meaning that the walk became more like a forced march with our P.E teacher yelling at us to walk faster unless we wanted to drown. Thankfully we all made it and the school sent a bus to bring us back. I have had a fear of that causeway since.
This morning for some reason I woke up thinking about Monks, cheese and Lindisfarne. A few years ago I read in passing, an article stating that monks ordered in 11,000 rounds of cheese to supplement the cheese that they had made for themselves. For the life of me I can't find that article again, so did I make it up or dream it?
Well possibly not.
Monks were known to grow or make most of the food and drink they needed and we also know that a lot of cheeses that we have today, started off in monasteries. Cheese became a go to protein for Monks as there were a lot of days where their religion forbade the eating of Meat or Fish. Since they had plenty of milk, why not make cheese! So why did they have so much milk?
Well here is the slightly icky bit - Vellum.
Vellum was used for those beautiful illustrated religious works that the monks produced and the best vellum is made from very young calves skin. To get a lot of calves you needed a lot of cows, which in turned supplied a lot of milk. The calves also supplied another ingredient for cheesemaking, rennet. Rennet is an enzyme found in the 4th stomach of nursing calves and makes the milk separate into curds and whey. Through archaeological digs on Lindisfarne, they now believe they have found the Vellum workshop. There is evidence of not only calf vellum being produced but also goat and sheep vellum which was a lesser quality vellum used for everyday writings.
Monastic cheese tended to be a semi soft cheese that was highly aromatic. It could also be smoked which not only changed it's flavour but helped keep the cheese even longer. The monks would not only eat the cheese themselves but sell it at local markets and take it on their pilgrimages to other countries.
Cheese production by the monks and by the smaller local farmers was booming in medieval Britain until Henry VIII decided to destroy the monasteries in the name of love. The monks were producing so much cheese that cheese production took a nosedive until the 17th century. Large farms and dairies started to mass produce cheese and what we now call artisan cheeses almost disappeared altogether.
It wasn't until the 1970s that artisan cheese started to recover -thank goodness!