>>As I stick to my principle that I shouldn't drive 100km to fill my fridge, I stooped down to buying bodybagged cheese, but at least I still have the choice and I buy the hardest I can find. And it doesn't stick to the knife, which is good. Not quite happy but OK.
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>Do you have an equivalent of UK hard English cheeses like cheddar , red leicester etc

Depends. What I saw sold as cheddar in the US we don't have and I'm glad that we don't. Perhaps if you brought the genuine article, and we compare? :)

The standard cheeses here are mostly by recipes gathered around the neighborhood - kačkavalj (caccio cavale), trappist, gauda, edamer; also finding mozzarella everywhere, even though 15 years ago nobody knew the word. That's all the standard industrial stuff, and like I said not bad, it is cheese, just nothing to write home about. Now pretty much every village worth its cows claims to have their own brand of something and they make you feel like a total ignoramus as you've never heard of them. I've tried some of those - actually once I drove an extra 100km to get about 60kg of cheese from the dairy high school's shop for the whole gang - mixed cow/sheep and pure sheep kačkavalj. That was the best cheese I ate in 2012 - and the rest of the gang said it used to be better few years ago, they started messing with the recipe. Go figure.

The one village in the 'hood where they really are famous for the cheese is Mokrin, where they have both the rolled and string cheese of their own recipe. I've seen them do it on youtube, and still can't figure what's so special. But it tastes right. Must be some bits missing in the video.