T. Earle Welby,
IN "THE DINNER KNELL"
Cheshire is not only the most literary cheese in England, but the oldest. It was already manufactured when Caesar conquered Britain, and tradition is that the Romans built the walled city of Chester to control the district where the precious cheese was made. Chester on the River Dee was a stronghold against the Roman invasion.
It came to fame with The Old Cheshire Cheese in Elizabethan times and waxed great with Samuel Johnson presiding at the Fleet Street Inn where White Cheshire was served "with radishes or watercress or celery when in season," and Red Cheshire was served toasted or stewed in a sort of Welsh Rabbit. (See [Chapter 5].)
The Blue variety is called Cheshire-Stilton, and Vyvyan Holland, in Cheddar Gorge suggests that "it was no doubt a cheese of this sort, discovered and filched from the larder of the Queen of Hearts, that accounted for the contented grin on the face of the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland."
All very English, as recorded in Victor Meusy's couplet:
Dans le Chester sec et rose
A longues dents, l'Anglais mord.
In the Chester dry and pink
The long teeth of the English sink.
Edam and Gouda
Edam in Peace and War