How Cornish Yarg Cheese Is Made With Stinging Nettle Leaves

Following is a transcript of the video.

Claudia Romeo: The defining qualities of Cornish Yarg cheese are a dark-green rind and a candid white mold. The rind actually comes from these leaves, called stinging nettles, which are brushed on by hand one by one. The nettles give the cheese a fresh, creamy taste with hints of herbs, seaweed, and lemon. Cornish Yarg may not be as popular as other English cheeses like Stilton or traditional cheddar, but it's just as rare because it can only be made in one place. We're in the hedgerows of Ponsanooth, Cornwall, and these right here are the nettle leaves that are used to wrap Cornish Yarg. Imagine, there are only five people in the whole world that know how to properly wrap a Cornish Yarg. So, how did this recipe even come about? Well, it was actually found randomly in a book about 400 years ago. Fascinating, isn't it? Well, I'm certainly intrigued, so it's time for us to go and find out more. There's only one dairy in the world that makes this cheese: Lynher Dairies, in the heart of Cornwall. Like all cheeses, it all starts here: with fresh milk, rennet, and, in this case, cultures. You see these beautiful white molds around the cheese? That's what the cultures will trigger in the aging process later on.

Leighton: You need to disperse the whey bit by bit, gently. If you take the whey off too quickly, you won't leave enough behind for the cultures to feed on. The sugar is in the whey. Your cheese will be very metallic, very cheddary, which you don't want.

Claudia: Leighton will test the whey up to 20 times per vat between each step. He does it to monitor its temperature and those levels of lactic acid, which will give us a crumbly cheese. For a few hours, the day goes like this: cutting, testing, cutting, testing. They're big, huh?

Leighton: The curd itself is still quite delicate. And you can see, underneath, the pattern. You can see the curds, the individual curds.

Claudia: Yes, yes. But they still stick together, even though --

Leighton: It always wants to knit itself together.

Claudia: Oh, I see, 'cause they remember where they came from.

[Leighton laughs]

Once all the whey is drained, all that is left is salting the curd, cutting it again into very small pieces, placing it into molds, and pressing them. After it spends 24 hours in the press and in brine, we have a beautiful white canvas that is ready to turn into a Cornish Yarg. The only people fit for the job are these ladies: the nettlers. Every year between May and July, they go out in the fields to carefully pick the stinging nettles that are used to wrap the cheese. This large quantity of nettles is kept frozen to freeze off the small needlelike structures that sting and cause a rash when they touch human skin.

Jenny: So, what we have to ensure is to make sure that this leaf is dipped, completely immersed five times.

Claudia: Oh, five times?

Jenny: Because you're actually washing it. And then, with the -- as you see, there's a furry side and there's a shiny side. The shiny side goes against the cheese. So what you're trying to do is make that leaf stick on that cheese. And then with your brush take your moisture out. And then what you do is you just cover the cheese.

Claudia: All right. And do you have a specific pattern in mind when you do it?

Jenny: Yes, we do.

Claudia: Oh, yeah?

Jenny: Yeah. We call it dragon's teeth. And you can see, it's, like, up and down. So it's quite therapeutic.

[Claudia laughs]

Claudia: That's true.

Jenny: Mesmerizing sometimes.

Claudia: So, how many years have you been doing this?

Jenny: This is my 15th.

Claudia: Wow! So, what will these nettles do to the actual cheese?

Jenny: It gives a lovely earthy flavor. It completely surrounds the cheese, so it's giving it a protective layer. It's very, very quirky. It's very unusual. No one else does it.

Claudia: To see if I could create a Cornish Yarg myself, I gave nettling a go. OK, so I pick it up from the top.

Jenny: Pick it up. Keep it in your left hand. Spread your fingers out like you're doing, and then submerge that five times.

Claudia: Three, four, five.

Jenny: OK. So then the shiny side. I would then pick it up with two hands. That's it. Yeah, and I would put that on that corner. That's it.

Claudia: Like here?

Jenny: Yep.

Claudia: All right, well, it's holding its shape. I thought it was just going to disintegrate in my hands.

Jenny: No, you're doing very well. That's it. And then with that, you, quite forcefully, you can get the water out. That's it. So you're trying to make that leaf stick to the cheese.

Claudia: Jenny told me that it's OK to leave little gaps between leaves when nettling. Why? Because the cultures that we added at the very start of the making process will form a natural mold once the cheese ages.

Jenny: Can you see the pattern you're forming?

Claudia: Yeah. It's not intentional. [both laughing]

Jenny: You're doing very well.

Claudia: How do you call it? Dragon ...

Jenny: Dragon's teeth, I call it.

Claudia: Dragon's teeth.

Jenny: It's just like that jagged effect.

Claudia: This is more like sheep's teeth, to be honest.

Jenny: Sheep's teeth! [laughs]

Claudia: A Cornish Yarg matures for 21 days. It ages in cold maturing rooms with high humidity. The cold temperature preserves the cheese, but also the nettles, which would decompose very easily in a warm environment. The nettles themselves also help the cheese mature, giving it rigidity and firmness and creating a rind.

Catherine: And the perfect rind is firm, but not soft. It's dry, but not too dry. It's not crispy. It's a little bit moist, and then it's got this lovely environment for these white molds to develop. And so every cheese looks like a Christmas tree.

Claudia: Oh, yeah. It does.

Catherine: So you have one nettle meeting another nettle here. The white candidum mold is in the cheese, so at sort of 20 days it's starting to break through and create this mold that then spreads its way -- so this little bit here is where there's a gap in the nettles that the mold can poke through. And then finally, as the cheese matures, as these molds take ahold, that flavor starts permeating down through the cheese.

Claudia: Catherine's dairy is the only one in the world that makes this cheese. But the idea that nettle leaves enable cheese to mature is at least 400 years old, from the time when cheese was made at home. Back then, cheeses were placed on beds of nettles to favor the aging. So, we're looking at a little bit of maturing under the rind. You can see that the rind has softened under there. And then you've still got this slightly crumbly core.

Claudia: I was expecting the rind to be a bit thicker.

Catherine: Well, it's just one thin nettle leaf. It's very lactic. It's got a bit of a snap to it as you break it. And then as you get to the rind, it's slightly more elastic-y.

Claudia: That's true. Yeah, yeah. Jenny: So, um ...

Claudia: Let's see. So, very milky. Slightly acid. Yeah. God, I don't know, I'm just having some childhood memories. It really reminds me of something that I would have back home in Italy. Like, the same sort of texture, milky, and a bit lactic. Just everything you said, but with something different. And you can taste that nettle, can't you? Yeah, yeah. You can taste the nettle. So the nettle's giving you a textural experience, but also is imparting flavor. It's almost a bit lemony as well. Yeah? 'Cause it's fresh and there is that acidity. Maybe not a very acidic lemon, but something like an Amalfi lemon, one of those sweeter ones. So there is something about it. No, you are absolutely right. And the other thing I think you get a bit of is yogurty. Definitely. But the older the cheese gets, the more likely you are to get some of those flavors coming through.

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