Mankwold

Mankwold is the common name for the fictional form of English soft cheese, created by the character Helen Archer in the Borsetshire village of Ambridge, in the long-running Radio 4 soap-opera "The Archers".

The formal name for the cheese, as used on the radio series, is "Borchester Blue".

It is believed that the name originates as a synthesis of the vulgar English expression 'manky' (meaning approximately, 'in a poor or dirty condition') and the suffix '..wold' that signifies the hills of parts of the East Riding of Yorkshire in North-Eastern England, and is a suffix often therefore found in the names of the cheeses from that part of the world.

The name Mankwold was coined by Dusty Substances on the Archers Message Boards. Inspired by the short lived but triumphantly insipid 'new' British soft cheese Lymeswold, I imagined it to be like that only mankier. Mankwold De Luxe is the hyped up Christmas version which comes in a gift box with a sprig of plastic holly and a complimentary brown paper bag.

Devised by Ambridge's resident bulimic and least appealing young female member, Helen Archer, Mankwold is ideal for those feeding frenzies and regurgitating immediately after consumption. It is soft and with a hint of blue vein, in much the same way Helen's legs are, and available in Underwood's cheese department. Underwood's being the Borchester equivalent of Harrods only not run by a phoney pharaoh.