Abbey gold, bowland with raisin and apple, windsor red, stilton with blueberries, smoked lincolnshire poacher, bradbury’s wholenut, white stilton with apricots, pecorino, charnwood smoked cheddar, and berkswell ewes milk — it reads like a fine wine list, yet it’s all found at a small farmers market booth in Cambridgeshire.
I have a weakness for fine cheese that can never be appeased in Canada (the land of processed mild cheddar and mozzarella). And, even though the Brits have a wacky sense of cheesy fun (a.k.a. the rolling of the cheese), I’ve never considered the UK one of the great cheese nations (like other countries in Europe); however, my eyes are now open to the amazing dairy product that this country has to offer. The word on the street is that England now has more types of cheese than any other nation in the world.
The one question that is still lingering in my brain at the end of a very soggy and cheese filled day is… can I bring cheese back to Canada? And, to find an answer to my question I visited my old friend the CFIA web site.
Cheese has to be declared upon entry. As a Canadian coming from the UK the regulations are: 20 kg per person to a maximum of $20 of cheese is allowed. For cheese imports exceeding 20 kg or $20 they must meet the conditions for commercial imports for dairy products. The lines become very grey very quickly when you step outside these limits, which is a real bummer because you can’t buy anything good for less than $20 after the $$ conversion.
