A conference of bottles

There was a girl who had a goat. By the standards of her species, she (the goat, that is) was not excessively surly or truculent. She permitted herself to be milked, and rarely butted the milkmaid. The girl turned the milk into cheese. News of this reached Peter Rich. Peter, who runs Jeroboams, is one of the more important wine and cheese entrepreneurs of our times. He asked for a sample. She sent him four chèvres. He ate one — delicious — and put the other three on the shelves. They quickly vanished, to be scoffed with enthusiasm, and repeat orders.

He phoned the goatherd and asked for 24, with the promise of repeat orders. The girl was astonished: ‘But I’ve only got one goat.’ ‘Get more, then,’ barked Peter. She did, and became a part of the British cheese revolution.

That is something else which has gone better in Britain over recent years. We have always been good at hard cheese and blue cheese, but British soft cheese, especially from the goat, has improved dramatically. Our makers regularly win tasting competitions, to the Frogs’ fury. Crécy, Poitiers, Agincourt, Waterloo, Oran, the Olympics: all that, they can just about forgive. But to be bested by the Rosbifs at cheese-making: insupportable.

It serves them right. French chèvre can often be disappointing. You see some in a Provençal street-market, and it looks so enticing. An evil, dark greeny/bluey colour, it is virtually suppurating, like Satan’s eye. You are assured that it was made by Grand-Mère Genevieve by a process handed down over the generations, from witch-matriarch to witch-matriarch. So you cut into it, already salivating, almost expecting it to fight back. The interior turns out to be a bland white colour, with a texture and taste to match: barely worth grilling on toast.