Legal vs. Authentic Stilton

Legal vs. Authentic Stilton

Stilton is one of the world’s great cheeses. So great, in fact, that its name is now protected by English food regulations, much the same way that France restricts what can be called Champagne and Scotland, Scotch.

To earn the time-honored name of Stilton, a cheese must be produced in one of the three English Counties of Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire. Critically, Stilton must NOW be made from pasteurized milk.

Stilton was first made in the 1700s. Louis Pasteur wasn’t born until 1822. Clearly, the first Stilton cheese was been made from unpasteurized, raw milk. So what we now enjoy as true and sanctioned Stilton is not, technically speaking, authentically prepared or made in the way it once was.

However, an English cheesemaker called Stichelton is bringing back the old ways of making an English blue cheese from unpasteurized milk. According to Lydia Burns, cheesemonger at Marion Street Cheese Market, “they’re trying to resurrect the original and invoke a form of Stilton that most people haven’t tasted.”

In a 2010 segment I created and produced for WBEZ Worldview, I had two sets of camembert made for me by a private cheesemaker. One set used pasteurized and the other unpasteurized milk. Most people, including illustrious notables GWiv and MikeG, knew immediately which one was raw. The unpasteurized cheese was more funky looking and seductively smelly, it had more personality and depth, and it was collapsing in on itself, as the life within churned away, creating wonderful flavors.

There's more going on in raw milk so it often (though certainly not always) leads to a cheese of greater complexity.

Recently, Burns and me sampled a Stichelton and an officially sanctioned Stilton.



The Stichelton, with fewer blotches of blue mold, didn’t look as tasty. Burns describes it as “deceptively mild, creamy and fudge-y, so it balances the spiciness of the blue cheese.” I found it a lot like biting into a stick of right-out-of-the-refrigerator butter – dense and not as crumbly as a lot of blues. “It’s very luscious,” Burns observed, “and dynamic: it’s so much a product of place and time that it captures those changes throughout the year.”



The Stilton from Colston Basset packed more punch, the acidity playing against the creaminess, to fill the mouth with deep flavors. This does not mean that pasteurized is better: with a cheese like this, there are a lot of environmental factors to consider (the molds used, the way the cheese was matured, how the affineur brought the cheese to completion). Colston Basset is what I expect a Stilton to be, not as surprising or maybe as interesting across the seasons as the Stichelton, but still, a model of its type and an excellent cheese.



Tonight, I’m going to try both cheeses again, paired with Cockeyed Cooper, a Bourbon barrel-aged barley wine ale.

Camembert and and a blue are two very different cheeses. French Camembert made from raw milk is typically aged for less than the USDA requirement of 60 days for raw milk cheeses, which may in fact be increased. A blue is generally aged for more than 60 days, so the use of raw milk is then legal in the USA. Zingermann's is selling Stilchelton from June of 2010 in the US.
I don't think one can compare the two cheeses and the effect of raw milk on one or the other. You can't get a good Camembert legally in the US because the pasteurization kills everything that makes a French raw milk Camembert or other cheeses great.
We purchase wheels of a good commercial blue such as Stella and age for 6 months to a year. The character changes tremendously and becomes milder and nuttier.
I don't know if the use of raw milk has much to do with the taste of Stilchelton and justifies the price.
But I do know that Stilchelton is legal in the US-Dick

budrichard wrote:But I do know that Stilchelton is legal in the US-Dick

But it's not legally Stilton -- I think that's his point.

budrichard wrote:Camembert and and a blue are two very different cheeses. French Camembert made from raw milk is typically aged for less than the USDA requirement of 60 days for raw milk cheeses, which may in fact be increased. A blue is generally aged for more than 60 days, so the use of raw milk is then legal in the USA. Zingermann's is selling Stilchelton from June of 2010 in the US.
I don't think one can compare the two cheeses and the effect of raw milk on one or the other. You can't get a good Camembert legally in the US because the pasteurization kills everything that makes a French raw milk Camembert or other cheeses great.
We purchase wheels of a good commercial blue such as Stella and age for 6 months to a year. The character changes tremendously and becomes milder and nuttier.
I don't know if the use of raw milk has much to do with the taste of Stilchelton and justifies the price.
But I do know that Stilchelton is legal in the US-Dick

"Camembert and and [sic] a blue are two very different cheeses," of course. "Stilchelton [sic] is legal in the US," of course. I agree fully with your opening and closing statements and everything in between. I'm not sure what I might have said to suggest that I'm not in agreement with everything you've said, though it sounds like you're correcting me for some misperception.

To clarify, what's interesting to me is that a cheese that is marketed as legal and "true" Stilton is actually less "authentic" than Stichelton, which cannot use the name Stilton.

Honestly, bro, I don't think we're in disagreement about anything, are we? If we are, please explain.

Timely post. I took a cheese class here (Cambridge MA) at Formaggio kitchen just yesterday, featuring British cheeses. Formaggio sources most of their British cheese from Neal's Yard, and the highlight of the evening for me was the compare and contrast between Stilton and Stichelton. Colston Bassett Stilton is one of the cheeses closest to my heart but the Stichelton stood up proudly next to the king of cheeses. I would agree that the textures are quite different (or were last night), and we also got the explanation from our monger that the Stichelton is more variable seasonally.

Formaggio does nice pairings in their classes, and last night the blues were served with Coturri Primitivo (a Mendocino zinfandel that tasted a lot like a port to my untrained palate) as well as a square of dark chocolate and a few very spicy walnuts. Every bite a delight of sweet, salty, bitter, spicy and returning to sweet again.

Other cheeses featured were Wensleydale, Caerphilly, Berkswell, a clothbound cheddar (Montgomery's from Somerset) and Coolea from Ireland.

porklet wrote:Timely post. I took a cheese class here (Cambridge MA) at Formaggio kitchen just yesterday, featuring British cheeses. Formaggio sources most of their British cheese from Neal's Yard, and the highlight of the evening for me was the compare and contrast between Stilton and Stichelton. Colston Bassett Stilton is one of the cheeses closest to my heart but the Stichelton stood up proudly next to the king of cheeses. I would agree that the textures are quite different (or were last night), and we also got the explanation from our monger that the Stichelton is more variable seasonally.

Sampling the cheese again last night, I was surprised that the thick, buttery texture of the Sitchelton was almost unchanged from my first tasting: last night, I let it sit out for over an hour; the first tasting was of a cheese right out of the refrigeration cabinet (far from ideal, but had no choice).

Conclusion: The Colston Bassett had more pleasing texture (grainier, more crumbly) and I thought the flavor was deeper. With a pasteurized cheese, so much depends upon affinage, and Neal's Yard knows what they're doing.

Being unpasteurized, the Stichelton would show more seasonal variability, so maybe it'd be more interesting another time of year.

That said, both these cheeses were enjoyable (though rather costly: the Colston Basset was about $23/lb and the Stichelton about $29/lb).

Spendy indeed, the Stilton at Formaggio goes for $30/lb and the Stichelton is $35/lb. However, the cheese is taken care of very well (I'd go so far as to say "babied") in their cave ... you get what you pay for.