SILAGE trailers that busied our road all summer have been replaced by the plough, as fields of maize and arable silage are prepared for reseeding.

I picture a team of horses, in low autumn sun, and think of the paintings, poetry and the recipes this scene has inspired.

In fact, the classic ploughman's lunch of bread, cheese and chutney was popularised by the MMB in 1973, in an effort to boost dairy consumption.

It's an enduring success; simple, yet varied by the homemade breads and cheeses available locally.

The grasslands of western Britain and the Yorkshire dales are home to some of our best known cheeses: Cheddar, Caerphilly, Double Gloucester, Cheshire, Lancashire, Wensleydale; all developed from recipes used in small farm dairies, to conserve and add value to their surplus fresh milk.

But why can't I name a Cumbrian cheese?

I decided to ring Leonie at Thornby Moor Dairy.

'There wasn't much cheese making in Cumbria until quite recently', she explained.

'You had the Lancashire cheeses in Furness and S. Westmorland and some rather plain, skim milk cheeses were made for family consumption, but in Cumberland, they made butter.

This is livestock rearing country, and the buttermilk left over when cream has been removed for churning, was fed to fattening calves and pigs.

It's more nutritious than the thin acid wheys left after cheese making, and what's more, the fertile pastures of the Eden valley and Solway plain, produced milk that made a rich golden butter that sold well at market.

Some was even carried by ship, out of Whitehaven, where sugar, rum and spices were being brought in, from the Caribbean.'

No wonder our food culture's evolved around meat and sweetmeats!