The Source
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A creamy white, bloomy-rinded cheese made on Fen Farm Dairy in Bungay on the Suffolk-Norfolk border. It is described as having a smooth silky texture and a golden curd, with long lasting warm earth, farmyard and mushroom flavours.
Jonathan and Dulcie Crickmore and their team make it to a traditional French recipe using raw milk from their herd of French Montebeliarde cows. It is the only traditional unpasteurised Brie-de-Meaux style cheese made in the UK and still relatively new -the first batches were produced in January 2013.
The cheese is named after 12th century Earl of Norfolk, Baron Bigod (pronounced By-god). He was originally from Normandy, where bloomy-rinded cheeses such as Brie and Camembert are well known, but came over to Britain during the Norman invasion. The Baron owned the land where Fen Farm now stands, but ended up upsetting King Stephen by building a castle in Bungay (which overlooks Fen Farm) and was packed off to fight in Syria as punishment!
Producer Jonathan likes to think that if he were still around today, he’d love that a quality French-style cheese is available in his home town!
The cheeses are handmade in small batches early in the morning using the raw milk, still warm from the cows. Special cultures are added and it is carefully poured into vats so as not to damage the delicate cells and fat molecules, then rennet is added. The resulting curds are hand ladled into large moulds. Young cheeses are hand salted then wrapped in paper and left to mature in the cold room for up to 8 weeks. In these conditions the cheeses break down from the outside-in without drying out.
When it is ready the cheese has a smooth, silky texture and distinctive long-lasting flavours and aromas. It is a truly unique regional cheese, owing to the milk produced by the cows which graze on the grasses and herbs unique to the Stow Fen basin marshland.
Support British regional farmers to ensure these special cheeses and cheesemaking skills last long into the future.
Jonathan and Dulcie Crickmore and their team make it to a traditional French recipe using raw milk from their herd of French Montebeliarde cows. It is the only traditional unpasteurised Brie-de-Meaux style cheese made in the UK and still relatively new -the first batches were produced in January 2013.
The cheese is named after 12th century Earl of Norfolk, Baron Bigod (pronounced By-god). He was originally from Normandy, where bloomy-rinded cheeses such as Brie and Camembert are well known, but came over to Britain during the Norman invasion. The Baron owned the land where Fen Farm now stands, but ended up upsetting King Stephen by building a castle in Bungay (which overlooks Fen Farm) and was packed off to fight in Syria as punishment!
Producer Jonathan likes to think that if he were still around today, he’d love that a quality French-style cheese is available in his home town!
The cheeses are handmade in small batches early in the morning using the raw milk, still warm from the cows. Special cultures are added and it is carefully poured into vats so as not to damage the delicate cells and fat molecules, then rennet is added. The resulting curds are hand ladled into large moulds. Young cheeses are hand salted then wrapped in paper and left to mature in the cold room for up to 8 weeks. In these conditions the cheeses break down from the outside-in without drying out.
When it is ready the cheese has a smooth, silky texture and distinctive long-lasting flavours and aromas. It is a truly unique regional cheese, owing to the milk produced by the cows which graze on the grasses and herbs unique to the Stow Fen basin marshland.
Support British regional farmers to ensure these special cheeses and cheesemaking skills last long into the future.
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