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Home » Dairy » Cheese » Semi-Firm Cheeses » Cotherstone Cheese

Cotherstone Cheese

Cotherstone cheese

Cotherstone cheese. Keith Williamson / flickr / 2010 / CC BY 2.0

Cotherstone cheese is a semi-hard cheese with a sharp, slightly tangy taste. It is made in Cotherstone, Yorkshire, England.

It has a crust like Camembert, but is covered with yellow wax. Inside, the cheese has an “open” texture, like Wensleydale.

It is made from full-fat, raw milk, in rounds 20 cm wide and 10 cm tall (8 inches x 4 inches), weighing 2 kg (4 ½ pounds). Vegetarian rennet is used.

Cotherstone cheese needs to mature for at least 1 to 3 months. As it ages, the crust turns from gold to pink.

There are two versions of Cotherstone cheese, a white version and a blue-veined version. The blue-veined version is sometimes referred to as “Yorkshire Stilton.”

Nutrition

Cotherstone cheese has a fat content of about 45%.

History Notes

Cotherstone cheese is surmised to be a variation of Wensleydale cheese, possibly made as far back as the 1600s; the wax coating meant that it could be stored for up to a year.

Cotherstone is a village in County Durham that in the Domesday Book was referred to as Cudrestone.

The Cotherstone name was only applied to the cheese at the beginning of the 1900s. A woman named Mrs Birkett, who made the cheese up until 1940, helped to promote it as a cheese separate from Wensleydale.

Production ceased during the Second World War and didn’t begin again until towards the end of the 1900s.

Literature & Lore

“Them’s all Roman Catholics there,” said the driver, as we left it behind; and by-and-by, when we came to Cotherstone — Cuthbert’s Town — “Here ’tis nothin’ but cheese and Quakers.” — White, Walter. A Month in Yorkshire. London: Chapman and Hall. 1858. Page 169.

Other names

AKA: Yorkshire Stilton

This page first published: Aug 17, 2004 · Updated: Feb 12, 2022.

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Tagged With: British Cheeses, British Food, English Food, Yorkshire Food

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