Must-stock cheese accompaniments

Honey
As an example, for a cracking creamy blue with a piquant salty and spicy finish, recommend a good local raw pouring honey or chunk of honeycomb. This adds to the mellow creaminess of the cheese and cuts through the spice beautifully.

A serving suggestion for honey is to have good pieces of honeycomb stacked next to the uncut wedge of cheese. This looks gorgeous and tempts you right in. Then scatter some roasted nuts, another essential condiment for cheese. Make sure you have a selection of awesome raw nuts always available. Do upsell and describe how you would prepare and serve the nuts and explain why. I explain by roasting nuts they become crunchy and intense in flavour as the moisture is drawn out. Then scatter them whilst still warm onto your cheeseboard. Walnuts also work well with cheese when roasted, and add a pleasing crunchy texture.

Medlar jelly
One favourite condiment of mine that I regularly upsell to my customers that is also getting a long and overdue renaissance is the Medlar Jelly.

The Roman legions brought them to the U.K. Medieval people considered this fruit to be important during feasts and famine. Chaucer mentions medlar, once known as openarses, in the Canterbury Tales.

Serve medlar jelly in a ramekin or small glass dish alongside your cheese. If you can get a whole fruit use this as a garnish (fully bletted). Medlar is best picked after the first frost and then stored in a cool, dark place as they will then begin to soften and sweeten. This slow decay is called bletting and converts starch to fructose. In the medieval period they were eaten by squeezing ones openarse so the pulp could either be picked or sucked out.

The taste of medlar is like a toffee apple and a little bit like apricot it lends itself well to most cheese and especially stinky softs.