The taste of England

Amid pastures farmed by her family for more than four centuries, Mary Quicke is reviving forgotten dairy traditions to produce delicious Devon cheeses

- Anna Turns

After 57 years of practice, artisan cheesemaker Mary Quicke still considers herself a beginner. At surfing, that is: she isn’t as nimble as she’d like. But that is most definitely not the point. For her, time in the sea is play – and, having just returned from Cornish waves, she’s energised and exuberant as she shows me around the 1,090-hectare Devon estate of pasture and woodland farmed by her family since 1540.

Mary has played a pivotal role in the revival of true farmhouse Cheddar – her efforts recognised with an MBE – and she’s at the top of her game. “It’s magical: this is the first step of taking milk from a liquid to solid,” enthuses Mary, as she cuts and tastes a small slab of panna-cotta-like white curd, still warm from the vat. “It’s quite sweet, like a milk jelly. But in the pursuit of complexity, you can’t just have sweet – you need a bit of bitter, and that’s where lactic acid comes in. Big industrial cheesemakers make as much cheese in a day as we do in a year [about 200 tonnes], with no people on the production floor,” continues Mary, who regularly judges cheese competitions all over the world.

“Our team brings attention and intention to the process – we’re trying to find the most lovely cheese in that vat of milk by using our senses and judgements.” She outlines three ‘flavour families’ in the Quicke’s portfolio of cheeses: buttery and caramelly; sharp, oniony and grassy; meaty, brothy and umami. The youngest three-month-old cheese is buttery, while the two-year-old vintage Cheddar has complex caramel notes.