Andy Shay
Cheese and Eggs in Tweed
By Andy Shay
On Monday I found myself in Picton for a meeting that was over and done by noon. My father-in-law lives there and over the years I have visited many of the sites and food/wine producers of the area. After a quick lunch with the aforementioned, I was ready to return home, but Monday was one of those gorgeous days that yearns for adventure. I am always up for a food adventure and after a quick stop at the tourist office I found that all developed tourist information stops on the south side of the 401 – the most obvious destination was the north side of the highway!
I crossed the highway at Bellville (can’t get the Triplets of Belleville music out of my head in this town) and headed north toward Plainfield, up route 37. Immediately, on the north side of the highway, is the Parmalot, Black Diamond cheddar plant. I took a pass on this one. Black Diamond and Balderson are produced by the same parent company. Balderson is the premium brand and all the top rated cheeses (scored on a scale of 1-100) are set aside for this brand. Black Diamond is mass market deli case brand that uses the cheeses that Balderson does not. There is nothing wrong with this cheese, it is just not of interest to me.
As I drive along, the sun is strong and there is a good stiff breeze. It seems that in this part of the country lilac bushes grow wildly and there are great clumps of them growing along the roadway, showing off their purple and white flowers and spreading their sweet scent and the wind rippled gently over their buds.
I was told by a friend that the road to Tweed is paved with hiding cops waiting for juicy Torontonians like myself to blow through their towns and so, unnatural as it felt, I stuck firmly to the speed limit much to the chagrin of the mounting line of cars behind me. When Zion road presented itself at Plainville I thankfully took it. Plainville, a pretty little 40 house enclave, is one of those place that the road used to go through and was then bypassed by the highway. Sure enough 1km later I was back on 37, now behind all of those cars.
Just as I was accelerating, I saw the sign for Maple Dale Cheese. Turns out it used to be called Zion Cheese until the 1960’s. I could not pass up stopping here where there is an outlet attached to the factory. I remember Maple Leaf Cheddar as being rather mild even in older versions. I bypassed all the younger versions, those filled with various herbs, soaked in wine, smoked, rubbed with garlic and found a piece of 8 year cheddar (surprisingly nutty and full of flavour). I also discovered a rather large tub of cinnamon honey butter (500g for $5.99)that I could not pass up. For those of you not initiated in cinnamon honey butter, there is not much better on toast in the morning! It only took one taste to convince my boys that it was worth trying. One more great find was fresh cheese curds. I spied them sitting on the counter, unrefrigerated and knew that I had hit the jackpot, for all real curd aficionados know that curds are a 1 day food that may not be refrigerated. Once they hit that cold box there are forever and irrevocably altered. Fresh cheese curds are almost never available in Toronto – and I am sure that the health department would have a fit if they were, so don’t expect to see them anytime soon! These were salty and squeaked mercilessly on my teeth and I chewed them.
I asked the young woman behind the counter what other food things I should do in the area – by the look on her face, she thought it was a rather odd question and didn’t really know. But the man in line behind me couldn’t help himself and volunteered information on an ice cream shop in Tweed and The Old Cheese House.
I made my way up to Tweed, a small town located beside a small lake and as the sign in the middle of the town proclaims this is an area that transitions from the Canadian shield to the plains of the south and you can clearly see that. Tweed is on the south west corner of the Land O’Lakes region and among the rivers and lakes that dot the region you can begin to see large outcrops of rock protruding from the ground.
It is a pretty little town and I stopped at the Historical/Heritage society to see if I could sus out any interesting foods. The door was open and while it seemed deserted inside, a greeting was called out and a wiry older gentleman with a disturbed comb-over emerged from a back room. He did his best to help me find what was not there among his racks of promotional materials and after finding a brochure on the Saturday Farmer’s market, made a call to the organizers to find out who was at the market. Over a 10 minute conversation he laboriously copied down each of the farmers, making social comments about each one of them. In the end, he emerged without the list and announced that there were a variety of attendees and it would be best to return on Saturday to meet them in person. I thanked him for his efforts and departed.
Half way through town is the By the Way Cafe – a homey cafe with good coffee. Further on a health food store with all the usual health food store goods that one finds in Toronto. The Ice cream, soft serve, is located inside the Riverside bowling lanes and both ice cream and bowling in the vintage quonset hut look like they would be a treat – but alas they were closed. Skip the Old Cheese House – an odd array of mid level frozen food bunkers and a maze of scented candles feathers and giftware.
Last stop of the day was the Chicken Coop. Awesome! Beginning with the giant chicken sitting on a nest of ewe bushes in the middle of the parking lot. It is the retail shop of a large chicken coop. You can purchase double yolk eggs, nest run eggs (ungraded sized) or regular eggs. The house specialty is pickled eggs – giant jars of pickled eggs! I purchased one at the counter – Imagine a hard boiled egg, quite firm with a vinegar tang – not bad. There was a good selection of Ivanhoe cheddar and Stirling butter – both made a few towns away. And there was Bell’s hard candies – I have heard about these for years and never actually seen them – brown and white striped mint humbugs – delicious! Then there were the candles, woman’s clothing, camping gear and other assorted and unrelated products.
Man, what an afternoon of freedom. For a city slicker like me, it is always refreshing to get out and visit the country!
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