Every cheese

South Holland, Netherlands

Left for years, Gouda turns into butterscotch with a crunch.

Allgäu, Bavaria, Germany

Bavaria’s alpine wheel — Gruyère’s quieter neighbour across the border.

Appenzell, Switzerland

Washed in a herb-and-wine brine whose recipe is a genuine trade secret.

County Cork, Ireland

A pungent Cork washed rind made on a farm that started in 1983.

Veneto / Trentino, Italy

The aged, skimmed-milk Asiago — nothing like the soft one in the deli case.

Prince Edward Island, Canada

Island milk, red soil, and a cheddar bound in cloth the old way.

Lancashire, England

Made by blending two or three days’ curd — a technique nobody else uses.

Savoie / Beaufortain, France

Alpine summer milk, pressed in a beech hoop that gives it its waist.

West Midlands, England

Britain’s best sheep’s-milk cheese, moulded in kitchen colanders.

Auvergne, France

The everyday French blue — buttery, spicy, and dependable.

Derbyshire, Leicestershire & Nottinghamshire, England

England’s protected blue — and it cannot legally be made in Stilton.

Seine-et-Marne, France

The raw-milk original, sold in wheels the width of a bicycle wheel.

Gudbrandsdalen, Norway

Not really a cheese at all — boiled whey, caramelised into a brown block.

Puglia, Italy

A mozzarella pouch full of cream and shredded curd. Cut it at the table.

Asturias / Picos de Europa, Spain

Aged in Asturian mountain caves. Among the fiercest cheeses on earth.

Southern Italy, Italy

Two gourd-shaped cheeses tied together and hung over a beam, like saddlebags.

Glamorgan, Wales

A miner’s cheese — salty enough to replace what a shift underground took out.

Normandy, France

Smaller, saltier and more brazen than brie, in its famous poplar box.

County Tipperary, Ireland

Ireland’s first farmhouse blue, from one family herd in Tipperary.

Hainaut, Belgium

A Trappist cheese washed in the beer the same monastery brews.

Franche-Comté / Jura, France

France’s most-produced AOP cheese, and no two wheels taste alike.

Cornwall, England

Wrapped in nettles, and named after the Grays — backwards.

Michoacán, Mexico

Mexico’s salty grating cheese, aged in the hills of Michoacán.

Loire / Sancerre, France

A goat’s-milk button from Sancerre that gets fiercer as it shrinks.