The taste of England
BBC Countryfile Magazine|October 2024
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
The taste of England

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.

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