Dairy
Cheddar
Cheddar is an English cow’s-milk cheese defined by the cheddaring process: drained curd is cut into slabs, stacked and turned so acidity rises and whey drains before milling, salting, and pressing into blocks or clothbound wheels. The cooked, pressed paste ages from mild and creamy to firm, crumbly, and sharply savoury, with possible tyrosine crystals in long-matured farmhouse examples. It is the everyday slicing, melting, and grating cheese of the English-speaking world, used on boards, in sauces, sandwiches, and baked dishes. West Country clothbound wheels and industrial block Cheddar share the name; age, milk quality, and whether the curd was truly cheddared separate commodity mild from complex mature styles.
Also known as: West Country Farmhouse Cheddar, American Cheddar
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Characteristics
Preparations
Traits
Grading systems
Grades are placed along a shared scale so systems can be compared side by side.
History
Cheesemaking in the Somerset caves and farms around the village of Cheddar was already established in medieval England.
Large clothbound wheels from Cheddar Gorge and the surrounding dairy district gained a reputation at royal and London markets.
Joseph Harding and contemporaries systematised cheddaring, hygiene, and temperature control, enabling consistent factory-scale production.
North American creameries adapted Cheddar methods to bulk block production for export and domestic sandwich cheese.
West Country Farmhouse Cheddar received PDO protection, distinguishing traditional clothbound Somerset, Dorset, Devon, and Cornwall makes from generic Cheddar.
Artisan clothbound revival and long-aged blocks coexisted with global mild industrial Cheddar as the world’s highest-volume cheese style.