In their small riverside dairy, cheerful cheesemakers Katherine and John Spencer are unlikely standard bearers for one of the world’s oldest food processes. The couple are the last cheesemakers in their village—which wouldn’t be very remarkable if that village wasn’t called Cheddar. Among the leafy lanes and rolling farmland of Somerset, in England’s rural West Country, Cheddar is the birthplace of one of the world’s most famous and popular cheeses. Cheesemaking here had almost disappeared, as mass-produced industrial products swamped the market. With their Cheddar Gorge Cheese Company, the Spencers are fighting back. Riverside Cottages and Ancient Caves Seeing Cheddar’s pastel-painted riverside cottages and 14th-century church, it’s hard to think of this as a global fulcrum in the story of cheese. Even in England the village is more famous because of the spectacular limestone cliffs of Cheddar Gorge, once voted the country’s greatest natural wonder. The Gorge’s rocks are riddled …