Morocco’s Baraka: Evolution not revolution
1 May, 2013Euromoney Asian treasurer profiles: Ayala, Capitaland, Country Garden, Delta Dunia, Lenovo
1 May, 2013Discovery Channel Magazine, May 2013
You simply haven’t lived until you have hurled a mighty slab of cheese down a Gloucestershire hill, hurtled down the same hill in pursuit of it, landed face first in the mud and possibly left the scene on crutches, minus your cheese.
It’s hard to be sure quite why people started doing this on Cooper’s Hill in the English Cotswolds, but it may be because of a pagan belief linked to fertility and renewal, or possibly an ancient requirement for the maintenance of grazing rights. Either way, people have been chasing their cheeses since at least the 15th Century.
The rules are simple. Procure a large, circular Double Gloucester cheese, encased in wood and decorated in ribbons. Roll your cheese down the one-in-three gradient of Cooper’s Hill. Give it a one second head start. Hurl yourself after it. Whoever is the first to cross the finish line wins the cheese.
If you’ve ever seen the hill, you won’t be surprised to learn that the activity attracts a number of injuries; 15 in 1993 alone. This has created a certain health and safety headache – a well-aimed cheese, given sufficient velocity, can take out a spectator, or possibly a cow – and the 2011 event took place informally without management because of safety concerns.
So what’s the geek appeal? The cheese, that’s what. A woman called Diana Smart has provided every cheese since 1988 (and since they’re seven to nine pounds in weight each, that’s quite a commitment of cheese), and she is one of the last people known to be using traditional methods to create it, with milk from her own herd of cows: a vital and lost art.
This is one of 10 festivals highlighted in the full article. To see that, please contact me or Discovery Channel Magazine.
