Bart Bear's Blog

Dad isn't into fancy cheeses with fancy names. His favourite is ordinary old cheddar. On their big trip last year the Oldies visited the place where this cheese was first made. It is called Cheddar Gorge and is in Somerset in England. The village is inside the biggest gorge in the UK. There are lots of caves in the gorge walls and you can go into some of them if you have time. The oldest complete human skeleton in the UK, over 9,000 years old, was found in one of the caves. Some caves have been used as houses, barns and cheese factories since prehistoric times. The locals say that "modern" cheddar cheese was invented way back in the 12th century when a milkmaid forgot a bucket of milk in one of the caves and when she found it months later the greeblies in the cave and the cool air had turned the milk into cheese. Cheddar Gorge is a very pretty place so visit it if you are in the UK, try real cheddar cheese and sample the other Somerset specialty, an innocent-tasting vicious cider called Scrumpy (the Oldies found out about that one the hard way).

Labels: England