The Stilton Cheese Makers' Association
PO Box 384A
KT5 9YL Surbiton, Surrey
Product Authenticaton Inspecorate Ltd (PAI)Rowland
House, 65 High Street, Worthing, West Sussex, BN11 1DN
Tel: 01903 237799
Fax: 01903 204445
enquiries@thepaigroup.com
White cheese made in cylindrical form from full cream cow's milk with no applied pressure and forming its own crust.
Produced in the Counties of Leicestershire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire.
The cheese gained its reputation from being sold at the Bell Inn, a coaching inn, in the town of Stilton on the Great North Road in the early 18th century. The first literary evidence is in Daniel Defoe's "Tour through England and Wales" published in 1727 where he notes that in 1722 he passed "through Stilton, a town famous for cheese." Stilton was then made in the Melton Mowbray area of Leicestershire and the name has for at least the last 80 years been used in connection only with cheese made in the designated Milk comes from the designated area except in times of shortage when it may come from the surrounding counties of Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire, Warwickshire, Staffordshire, Greater Manchester, Cheshire, Yorkshire and Lincolnshire . Starter cultures and rennet are added. Curds are formed which are cut, milled into walnut sized pieces and salted. Then put into cylindrical cheese moulds for up to seven days. The moulds are turned top to tail to drain. Mould is then removed and the surface sealed. It is usually sold within 3 weeks.
