The importance of orange cheddar

[pantryslut]

Among many other yummy things, we got a couple of apples in the box
yesterday. The cold weather has me thinking: apples and cheddar.

Red and yellow striped peel, white flesh...

...there is no way I can eat a white cheddar with this. It's just wrong.

And me with a block of delicious white cheddar (yes, I broke down) in my
fridge. It will have to go to something else, sorry.

Sigh. Aesthetics.

Comments

[genderfur.livejournal.com]

The Cheddar you're familiar with is dyed. It's not a modern abomination: it's a traditional abomination. (And there may even be a historical reason for it that I don't know.)

White cheddar has ...no dye.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

It's not an abomination at all, any more than adding turmeric for color in curries is an abomination. Or saffron to stew.

Or annato seed to cheese.

[genderfur.livejournal.com]

Well, turmeric and saffron both (theoretically) add flavor as well. Annato seed presumably adds flavor and texture?

But Cheddar is just orange. I really do wonder what the historical basis of the dye was. Perhaps just a way to distinguish it from the next county over's cheese? I'm very tempted to go on a research jag right now, but I really shouldn't....

[genderfur.livejournal.com]

Nope, annato is a coloring agent and Cheddar is a town. Okay, it didn't take much research. From Wikipedia:

Like many cheeses, the colour of Cheddar is often modified by the use of food colourings. In the United States, Annatto, extracted from the tropical achiote tree, is traditionally used to give Cheddar a deep orange colour. The origins of this practice have been long since forgotten, but the three leading theories appear to be:

=o= to allow the cheese to have a consistent colour from batch to batch
=o= to assist the purchaser in identifying the type of cheese when it is unlabelled
=o= to identify the cheese's region of origin.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

Trust me, turmeric is there to add color, not flavor. Turmeric tastes nasty.