Put your faith in cheeses

Wednesday, 18th February 2009

Sir Les Patterson celebrates Australia’s under-recognised talent for the other kind of culture

There is no doubt that Australian cheese has come a long way recently. Most of the best comes from Tasmania, that triangular bushy zone Down Under, where the cream is second to none. Tazzie, as we affectionately know it, is often left off the map. There was a big stink in London a few years ago when some pommy sculptor did a huge relief map of Australia on the wall of Australia House and the aforementioned island appendage wasn’t there.

King Island, a speck of dirt off the Tazzie coast, makes award-winning bries, blues and washed-rinds as well as cheddar. Their Endeavour Blue is the most ‘complex’ product: a gorgonzola-style, creamy, full-bodied blue. I always serve this at my functions.

There’s also Maffra in Gippsland, which specialises in handmade cheeses. These include versions of English classics: vintage cheddar, Cheshire, Wensleydale and Sage Derby. They also make Dargo Walnut, essentially a red Leicester with crushed walnuts. It’s ‘firm, slightly flaky’ with ‘a deep, smooth nuttiness that underlines the creaminess of the cheese’. Incidentally, we ‘cheesies’ don’t got to tastings; we call ’em, with more accuracy, ‘sniffings’.

Lactos Tasmania produces a lot of cheese, such as Heidi Raclette, a washed-rind, Swiss-style cheese (like gruyère). And then there’s Timboon Farmhouse in Victoria, which makes award-winning organic cheese, including brie, camembert and various blues.

It’s hard to believe that when I was a kid and my mum sent me out to ‘get the messages’ (what we Irish-Australians call shopping), she’d always write on the list ‘one packet Kraft’. Boy, we loved Kraft cheese then. Mum, the Lord be good to her, always put it in my sambies, sometimes with a bit of sliced gherkin, sometimes with apricot jam. Every now and then at lunch I’d find a bit of foil from the Kraft pack, which Mum had inadvertently sliced into the sandwich.

On the last royal tour, Prince Philip made the news when he refused to wear a hairnet at a cheese factory in Wagga Wagga. They were worried he could have contaminated the whole batch, but they had to chuck it out anyway because the royal sniffer dogs had had a go at it before the Duke’s arrival.

Our cheese has still got a long way to go, but, when your loved ones get a whiff of it, they’ll be screaming for more. Don’t forget, it’s stuff that Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman and Dame Edna got in their sandwiches when they were kids, and just look where it got them. Give it a go, and say Les sent you.