If you’re looking for something special for your
cheeseboard this Christmas, this is the year to give pride of place to one very
special Irish cheese: the Comte-style Glebe Brethan Irish Artisan Cheese, made from the unpasteurised
milk of a herd of Montbeliarde cows in Co Louth.
The cheese was a Winner of the Irish Food Writers’
Guild Food Award in 2012 (http://www.irishfoodwritersguild.ie/2012-awards.html) and for good reason: it’s creamy yet complex, with a
nutty character coming to the fore as the cheese matures.
• 2010 Gold Medal at Irish Cheese Awards
• 2006 Gold Medal at World Cheese Awards
• 2006 Gold Medal and Award for Best New Cheese at British Cheese Awards
• 2006 Euto-Toques Cavan Crystal Food Award
• 2006 Bridgestone Guides Megabytes Award
• 2005 Double Gold medal winner at International Food and Wine Exhibition
Sadly, its maker David Tiernan passed away in February 2013 and the cheese is no longer being produced. However the last of this precious cheese is still being sold in the lead up to Christmas, through Sheridans Cheesemongers, from La Rousse Foods (trade only) and directly from the Tiernan family farm.
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| The late David Tiernan, creator of Glebe Brethan Cheese |
Glebe Brethan is a versatile cheese that is as happy
on a mixed cheeseboard as it is in a sourdough sandwich (perhaps with some
slices of smoked venison from Coopershill House, another IFWG Food Award
winner), grated into a potato rosti or cubed onto salads.
At the 2012 IFWG
awards ceremony, Derry Clarke of l’Ecrivain choose to press it into a potato
terrine and serve it with a cream of onion soup (see www.irishfoodwritersguild.ie/2012.html
for menu). A nice idea for a Christmas starter perhaps?
Irish farmhouse cheese is a sector that simply did
not exist 40 years ago, and yet – thanks to the pioneering spirit of many
single-minded cheese-makers – it has grown to become one of the leading lights
of today’s Irish food story. David Tiernan will be remembered as having played a
significant role in recent chapters of that story. And in a country that now
boasts more types of farmhouse cheese per capita than our French neighbours,
there is no other Irish cheese quite like Glebe Brethan. Savour some of this great cheese, while you still can!
More information on David Tiernan’s contribution to Irish food can be found at www.irishfoodwritersguild.ie/april-2013.html, and on Glebe Brethan cheese at www.glebebrethan.com.
Zack