Note E292 — 49.
Reading edition
Compare with Tusser's description of the faults to be avoided in the making of cheese the following extracts on the same subject:
"Now what cheese is well made or otherwise may partly be perceiued by this old Latine verse:
Non nix, non Argos, Methusalem, Magdaleneve, Esaus, non Lazarus, caseus ille bonus.
That is to say, Cheese should not be white as Snowe is, nor full of eyes as Argos was, nor old as Methusalem was, nor full of whey or weeping as Marie Magdalen was, nor rough as Esau was, nor full of spots as Lazarus. Master Tusser in his Booke of husbandrie addeth other properties also of Cheese well made, which who so listeth may read. Of this sort for the most part is that which is made about Banbury in Oxfordshire: for of all cheese (in my judgement) it is the best, though some preferre Cheshire Cheese made about Nantwich: and other also commend the Cheese of other countries: But Banbury Cheese shall goe for my money: for therein (if it be of the best sort) you shall neither tast the renet nor salt, which be two speciall properties of good Cheese. Now who so is desirous to eate Cheese, must eate it after other meat, and in little quantitie. A pennyweight, according to the old saying, is enough."—Cogan's Haven of Health, ed. 1612, pp. 158-9.
Andrew Boorde, in his Dyetary already referred to, p. 266, mentions 5 kinds of cheese, namely: "grene chese, softe chese, harde chese and spermyse. Besyde these iiij natures of chese, there is a chese called a rewene chese, the whiche, yf it be well orderyd, doth passe all other cheses, none excesse taken." ... "Chese that is good oughte not be to harde nor to softe, but betwyxt both; it shuld not be towgh nor brultell; it ought not to be swete, nor tarte, nor to salt, nor to fresshe; it must be of good savour and taledge, nor full of iyes, nor mytes, nor magottes."
"Yf a chees is drie, Hit is a vyce, and so is many an eye Yf it see with, that cometh yf sounyng brendde, Or moche of salt, or lite of presse, it shende." —-Palladius on Husbondrie, E. E. Text Soc. ed. Lodge, p. 154.
With these extracts showing the essentials of good cheese, compare the following description of Suffolk Cheese, locally termed Bang and Thump, and made of milk several times skimmed:
"Unrivall'd stands thy county cheese, O Giles! Whose very name alone engenders smiles; Whose fame abroad by every tongue is spoke, The well-known butt of many a flinty joke, Its name derision and reproach pursue, And strangers tell of 'three times skimm'd skye blue.'" —Blomfield.
Its toughness has given rise to a number of local illustrations. In one the cheese exclaims:
"Those that made me were uncivil, For they made me harder than the devil; Knives won't cut me; fire won't sweat me; Dogs bark at me, but can't eat me."
"Hunger will break through stone walls, or anything except Suffolk cheese," is a proverb from Ray. Mowbray says "it is only fit to be cut up for gate latches, a use to which it is often applied." Other writers represent it as most suitable for making wheels for wheelbarrows.