I had the pleasure of visiting Consider Bardwell Farm last month. The trip was overdue, as cheeses from Consider Bardwell have been a staple at our cheese counter almost since we started. In our relatively brief existence we’ve witnessed their goat’s milk tomme, Manchester, become a superstar in the world of American farmstead cheese. The cheese made it into the September issue of Wine Spectator’s “100 Great Cheeses,” which knocked our socks off at the cheese counter, as we’d known Manchester as the grassy, spicy goat tomme that Chris from the farm delivered to us out of his truck on Fridays. And the most consistent thing about the cheese was that it was never the same cheese from week to week. I remember soft and stinky Manchesters and firm and feathery ones. Yet customers never cared. We’re talking about Manchester here, after all. It’s strikingly developed cheese regardless of its weekly deviation.
On my trip I tasted batch after batch of Manchester with hopes that I’d take home the tastiest wheels that best represent the cheese. I’d tasted Manchester countless times before, but you really get to expand your understanding of a cheese when tasting this many versions of it in one sitting. It was a tremendously gratifying experience since I’d never devoted so much time and appetite to one single cheese. No batch was the same. Even the oddities–the wheels that really deviated from the norm—said something about the way the cheese is supposed to be. The wheel that tasted exactly like snap peas pointed out the snap pea-ish qualities in the more typical wheels.
I narrowed it down to two batches and eventually we settled on batch 38 from October, which was on the firmer side. It’s also a little old for Manchester (they ship at 4 months), but the cheese is still very clean. And somehow it’s still a little musky. And there’s some snap pea and spice in batch 38. It’s complicated. That’s how I like my Manchester.
See you at the cheese counter,
Glenn H.
