I would think “buy your cheese already aged, from someone who already took care of this” is probably the right answer. But… I guess you’d need a room with strict, accurate control of temperature and humidity.
ETA: Including any industrial refrigerator that gives you such control.
I’m sure QtM has one. He’s a doctor after all so he must have secret lair.:eek: Subterranean, climate controlled where he’s attempting to corner the market on aged cheese and perform who knows what experiments.
I’ve tried to work, “Aged Cheddar” into the lyrics, “Goldfinger” but other than matching up the syllables and and slight rhyme, I got nothing.
Yeah, pretty much. It is partially below ground, but the local water table keeps me from going down too deep.
Sharp cheddar
It’s the cheese, the cheese with the bracing taste
A complex taste
Such an aged cheddar
Beckons me to enter my cave of curd
Just say the word
A brilliant prison doctor with an almost ritualistic love of old cheese and their slicing implements . . . are you sure you’re not the protagonist of an FX procedural?
Is aged cheddar “sharp?” I ask because if I’m eating regular non-aged cheddar mild/medium are inedible and sharp is OK if extra-sharp is not available. So as someone who only eats the sharpest regular cheddar, would I like elder cheese?
Sharpness is a quality that increases with age. If you like sharp cheddar, and you find sharper is better, then you would most likely enjoy an elder cheddar. Go online and order some double digit cheddar and see what you think. Or shop around locally and see if you can’t find at least something that’s over 4 or 5 years of age, and see if it’s to your taste.
Maybe I will be, one day.
Ritualistic? Well, maybe. I do carry on the family tradition known as the Cheese of Farewell, passed down to me from my father. Back then, we had to make do with an elder cheddar that was only 10 years old. Yet it served the ritual well, and there was enough of it to make a nice grilled cheese sandwich, too!
After your tip, and seeing the pictures online, I had the luck today to pick up a fairly plain one of these for cheap at a thrift store.
All cheddar is aged - if you didn’t age it, it wouldn’t be cheddar. Mild is aged for the shortest time, extra-sharp or extra-old (means the same thing) for the longest (among what’s usually available in a supermarket cheese case). Those are aged for a smaller or larger number of months. It’s essentially just a continuum from youngest to oldest, though with cheeses aged much longer than what’s called “extra-old” being available in specialty stores but not usually supermarkets.
And then there’s “how well was this cheese made, before they started the aging process?” - which of course contributes a great deal to the finished product. If you make huge batches of let’s call it economy-grade cheese, you don’t bother aging it for years, because who wants expensively aged economy-grade cheese anyway?
Oh, I don’t know. I’ve had fresh cheddar curds, just a few hours old. They have the hallmark cheddar flavor, and the fresh curd squeak. They just lack the bite that aging gives, but are full of the salt tang and mouth feel of new creation. I’d not call that an aged product, but it’s most assuredly a cheddar product. The fresh curds of swiss or muenster or havarti taste quite different from the cheddar. But they’re delicious, too.
They’re all good curds, David!
A few years ago I was in rural Wisconsin where many small towns still have one or more family cheese factories, with small stores attached. My first 20 year old cheddar. Qadgop does not exaggerate.
By the way “cheddar” does not refer to the aging process but to the curding process (“cheddaring”). Originally of course, the name came from the town of Cheddar in Somerset, where the limestone caves of the Mendip Hills provide natural aging chambers.
Which did you visit? I love wandering Wisconsin’s byways and paying a call on the small factories. Sadly, we continue to lose them at an alarming rate. One of my old favorites, Beechwood Cheese, is now an iffy operation opening only when there’s enough demand to merit starting up the equipment. And to think they used to be the official cheese supplier for Midwest Airlines (another great lost WI institution). 
The 20 year old cheddar was at Widmer’s in Theresa. A great place to visit.
My grandparents’ farm was outside Fond du Lac, but they sold it before I was born and moved to California after my parents relocated there.
Love that part of Wisconsin. Just a beautiful, underrated part of the USA.
Ah, Widmer’s in Theresa. They make great cheeses. It’s not horribly far from my home but not part of my usual circuit of cheese shops to call on. But an old cheddar from Widmer’s is always to be treasured. I believe I have a 7 year old sample of their work in my collection at the moment, awaiting the right moment.
It is a beautiful area, with all the kettles and eskers and drumlins and moraines left over from the glaciers.
Next time you’re in the area, let me know if you’d like tips about a few other cheese outlets not too far from Fond du Lac. St. Cloud and Plymouth have a few good stores, and Plymouth actually has the Cheese Capitol of the World museum, interactive center, and snack bar!
Oh I will! Not that I am planning a trip at the moment. Still, the Cheese Capital of the World museum and interactive center would be a powerful draw!
Sadly, Cedar Valley no longer has the 9 year old swiss, nor any plans to acquire any more. Apparently it was a one-off windfall, from which I benefitted. At the moment they have nothing older than about 18 months, and my other sources can’t find swiss older than 3 years (which is pretty good for swiss).
I’m still enjoying what I’ve got, though. I’ll stretch it out, but not so long that the cheese goes moldy now that it’s opened.
I have now ordered aged cheese with express shipping and am looking forward to trying it. Thank you for the recommendations! 
Aged cheese and express shipping?
Blasphemy I tells ya. It should be ordered by stagecoach or snail mail.
Not in the summer! Some places won’t ship it at all until the weather turns cold.
My daughter was appalled to find out that one of the cheeses I ordered is older than she is. 