When was yoghurt first
made and sold at Fordhall organic Farm? I have found the answer to that
question whilst working through the clues for the Heritage project, but what
about other Fordhall products? It was many years later that Arthur (who was
always inventing different products to make in his dairy) started to make and
sell ‘Yogice’ and ‘Yogtails’. It was while I was inspecting documents that
contained price lists, that I noticed Yogice and Yogtails being sold at
pre-decimalisation (15th February 1971) prices. Up to that point I
thought that these products first appeared as late as 1973, I haven’t any
evidence of when they first appeared, but it must have been prior to
decimalisation in 1971.
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| Staff making Fordhall Cheese Gateau in the old factory building. |
How about ‘Cream Cheese
Gateau’? Sounds delicious, but when did they first appear on the shelves? Unlike
cream cheese, clotted cream, yoghurt and cottage cheese, there is no definite
evidence of when the Gateau first arrived at the shops or on the market stalls.
I can, however, piece together the clues. When did the Gateau first appear
amongst the myriad of photographs and documents at my disposal? Are there any earlier clues that hint to the
future production of this product? Most important of all, what did it taste
like? They’re doesn’t seem to be a recipe for ‘Cream Cheese Gateau’, so I can
only look at the pictures and dream of how rich and tasty it was.
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| Thelma straining the cream cheese through muslim |
One great discovery
this week was a recipe, the recipe for Fordhall Farm Cheesecake. It was only a few papers in a diary, but there
it was! The recipe appeared with many variations including; orange, banana,
almond and rich cheesecake. Also on the pages in the diary were recipes for
lemon, orange and lime sorbets. I hope that one day someone will be nice enough
to follow the recipes and bring back to life a little of the past - maybe in Arthur's Farm Kitchen!
Today I have also
discovered a few more photographs. Some brilliant ones are from the dairy back
in the 1960s, where you can actually see part of the process of cheese making
and decorating the ‘Cream Cheese Gateau’. It looked very hard, physical work
and even though Arthur either invented or bought in various machines, it
obviously included a lot of manual labour. You had to be very strong in those
days, and not afraid of hard work!
Until next time
Gary, Volunteer
It is with thanks that this project is funded through the Heritage Lottery Programme.
