[Growster...]

Cheese came off rationing after WW2 in around 1954, but can anyone remember having anything other than Cheddar or 'Blue' cheese during that time? I don't remember where the Blue cheese came from, probably not Denmark, and the Cheddar was certainly made in the UK, but again, to a pretty basic recipe!

I didn't like blue cheese at all, and even the Cheddar seemed to burn the top of my mouth! Well, I was only seven or eight...

Nowadays, the top shelves of the cheese stalls are covered with all sorts from just about everywhere, but was there regionality back then? Surely Stilton kept going, plus the West Country cheeses!

Anyone remember?

[New shoot]

I don’t go that far back Mr G, but here is a story that is right up your street.

We have a local butchers shop near where I work and they pop in quite regularly.  There is the milk for their tea and then the peppers and spring onions they buy for their stir-fry mix. 

The shop also boasts a cooked meats, cheese and pie counter.  One of the butchers was telling me about a customer asking for Go-burner cheese and them all smiling about it and saying wot posh customers they did have.  It was Gob Burner and is a strong old school cheddar they stock now and then.  It is made to resemble the rather more robust cheeses sold before the days of supermarkets deciding what we liked

[Aunt Sally]

When Worzel and I were tiddlers cheese was bought with the rind on, just the fabric covering pulled off.  The rind helped to keep the cheese from drying out while stored in the larder.   When that wedge of cheese was finished it was a great treat to sit in the garden and chew on the rind.

We only had cheddar.  “Other cheeses were not available”

[Aunt Sally]

PS.   We had a TV (for the Coronation) before we had a fridge.

[mumofstig]

PS.   We had a TV (for the Coronation) before we had a fridge.

Same, we had a indoors cold larder and a fine wire mesh 'box' hung on the outside of the kitchen wall, in the shade - called the meat safe... Wouldn't like to have to rely on something like that nowadays 

[Aunt Sally]

… we had a indoors cold larder and a fine wire mesh 'box' hung on the outside of the kitchen wall, in the shade - called the meat safe... Wouldn't like to have to rely on something like that nowadays 

‘House wives’ had to shop nearly every day. Sunday dinner bought on Saturday, no shops open on Sundays.    Monday’s dinner was always cold roast and veg, no shopping on a Monday as it was ‘Washday’.

How life has changed!

[Growster...]

Marvellous tales - thank you!

Yes, I remember the rind on cheese being extra hard, (hence the term 'Hard Cheese' but from years before), I think you could just grate it, but it wasn't as hard as Parmesan rind is these days, although I still try to grate it and after forty minutes, get a bit fed up and go and do something else...

I remember a chum's mum making cheese melt in a pan on the stove by covering it with water too, which seemed a bit weird but worked! We didn't have a fridge until about 1956/7, and up to then, Mum had a marble slab in the pantry for anything which needed to be as cool as possible.

My dad - many years later - liked to buy half a stilton, for the Wintermass, scoop a hole in the middle and feed it with port, and that really did go down a treat!

But back on topic, I suppose kids' taste buds just didn't cater for the strong flavours I know mine certainly didn't!

[Alank]

Monday wash day, I remember it well.
Born and bred in a North east colliery village.
We sometimes used to cycle to school and loved riding down the back streets of the terraced rows of houses and dodging in and out of the washing that was strung out right across the road between the terraces.
No cars parked all over then.
All the washing had to be taken in and the washing lines taken down as Tuesday was always coal delivery day

[Alank]

I remember the cheese that used to burn the top of my mouth.
When we were little we would stay over at nana and grandads house and raid the pantry.
The cheese was very very strong and sometimes even had crunchy bits in
Not like the mass produced supermarket cheese of today 

[Goosegirl]

I don't remember having cheese as a child either on its own or in something. So remember the other comments on here re- Monday was wash day and my mum used a pot boiler with a mangle on top and dolly blue in the water. We used to go by train to see a rellie which went past the dolly blue works and all the bottom of the window sills were dripped in blue. I was enrolled into helping her fold up the sheets. Dad's collars were starched and put in a leather collar box. My grandma had a meat safe with a fine mesh window.

[Growster...]

But were there any regional cheeses made durinng rationing?

Surely farmers and manufacturers didn't just give up did they? Cottage cheese is so basic, there must have been some bright sparks who got around the rationing?

Off topic, but I'm about fifteen miles from the sea here, and I could easily have got on my bike and caught fish which wasn't on ration!

[mumofstig]

I can remember mum making some kind of soft cheese, with milk that wasn't quite as fresh as it should've been (probably before we got a 'fridge) I think she used vinegar to separate the solids - it's all a bit hazy  though .  It used to be in a cheesecloth, hanging from the wall tap over the sink, dripping, until it was thick/dry enough to use, if that makes sense?

[hamstergbert]

One of my aunties 'had a friend' who from time to time would present her and uncle Cliff with a modest  lump of what I suppose would now be called farmhouse Wensleydale, (flagged these days as being artisan and charged at some ludicrous rate).   She was always generous in sharing it with our mum.   In retrospect I suspect it really was actual 'farmhouse' and the person making it didn't see too much need to involve ministries of food or other regulatory busybodies!

[Growster...]

One of my aunties 'had a friend' who from time to time would present her and uncle Cliff with a modest  lump of what I suppose would now be called farmhouse Wensleydale, (flagged these days as being artisan and charged at some ludicrous rate).   She was always generous in sharing it with our mum.   In retrospect I suspect it really was actual 'farmhouse' and the person making it didn't see too much need to involve ministries of food or other regulatory busybodies!

That's what I'm trying to find out Hamsters!

There must have been 'cottage industries', making the stuff, and as Mum says, adding vinegar to 'off' milk might well have been a solution which nowadays we'd have got onto PDQ!

The earliest memory of anything like that was from a chum who lived on a farm in the fifties, and they always churned their own butter, but I can't remember any cheese appearing - perhaps because we always had jam at parties! I do remember the cucumber ones too...:0)

[Goosegirl]

My husband's late aunty was a farmer's wife and an ex land army girl. She used to make her own cottage cheese and butter plus everything else from pickles, jams, other preserves, bread, you name it she would make it. I'll ring one of her sons to get some more info as to how she did the cottage cheese. Betcha wot, I'd give anything to sit at her scrubbed farmhouse table and sample freshly made bread with a great dollop of home-made butter.