Caseophile

K for Kaaskop

In Holland the kaaskop or "cheese head" is the name given to the Edam mould. It is in wood encircled with metal. A cover is used to press the curds.

Which leads me to say once again that the Latin word caseus has given us all "cheese", "käse", "kaas"or "quesos". But we French with our "fromage" sit together with the Italians "formaggio" and the Catalans "fromatge" in talking more about its shape...

 

J for Japan

Although Japan's economic development had begun well before the "westernisation" introduced during the Meiji reign, their cheese industry remained held up by cultural influences. Yet the history of cheese there goes back ages as products derived from milk are mentioned as far back as the 7^th century AD – particularly So, which was said to be imported from China and presented to the Emperor. This legendary cheese, which a farm in Nara Ken is now beginning to produce under the name of So of Aska, was produced by reducing milk to a concentration of 10%, a different process from that practised in Europe, but close to Mongol cheeses.

In the Heian Gidai era (the beginning of the Middle Ages) cheese was considered as a luxury product, a food that fortified and gave you a long life, very much appreciated by the nobility.

In the 18^th century, Dutch traders brought Gouda cheese to the shoguns through the port; of Nagasaki, a privilege only they could enjoy, because Japan was closed to the outside world at this time. Despite the westernisation introduced during the Meiji era, as from 1868, the cheese industry there made slow progress, as Japanese culture looked down upon the regular planned slaughter of milk producing livestock, necessary in the rational management of their herds. It's only hardly in the last half century that things have built up more and more quickly, in tune with increased consumption, at first with melted cheeses and more and more now with soft cheeses.

At the present time there are 68 producers, 46 dairy and 22 farmhouse (12 farmhouse compared with 33 dairy in the island of Hokkaido), 6 cf. 28 in Honshu and 4 cf. 7 in Shikoku and Kyushu.

Cheese production in Japan has thus been recent – but spectacular, having represented only 9,500 tonnes in 1975 compared with 129,000 in 2003. For the most part it's all been about adapting Western cheeses, but making them more and more by using the traditional methods of their countries of origin, yet regularly trying out original creations and copies.

Today in Japan, they produce Camemberts in ultra modern factories, as well as melted cheese and fresh cheesess. Japan remains a very big importer of cheese, accounting for 120,000 tonnes per year - principally from Australia and New Zealand (75% of tonnage) - of a type of Cheddar. France only imports specialities, representing just 3% of Japanese imports by volume. On the other hand, French cheese is highly appreciated by an elite, who sometimes spend a fortune giving presents of cheeses or serving them during a Western-style meal.

This immediately brings to mind for me those Japanese mountain cheeses that I sampled when I was a member of the Caseus Montanus jury - and those Japanese producers in Munster with their washed rind soft cheeses...

 

I for IGP

At the same time that it created the AOP (the Protected Origin Nomenclature or PDO) in 1992, the European Union introduced another product definition – the IGP which translates as Geographic Protection Indicator. It is a less strict label than an AOP, mainly in terms of the somewhat partial link between a product and its "terroir" (rural region), but also in how and where it is made. Only one of the three phases in the production process (origin of the raw materials, manufacture and maturing) needs to be undertaken in the geographic area under consideration.

But one should not take it that an IGP is just the "waiting room" for finally making it into an AOP! Some cheeses never want to become AOPs and remain IGPs simply because these stand for a variety of versions. For instance: several levels of fat content. An AOP only admits one particular level, because that is what makes it unique.

Thus, a Tomme de Savoie cheese which is made in the Savoie region, with milk from Savoie following a Savoie recipe and matured only in that region – in short, you see that all the stages of production are well and truly from Savoie – remains an IGP, because historically it has always been made with more or less skimmed milk (if Reblochon cheese used full cream milk, Tomme was often – but not always! – produced after having more or less skimmed the milk to make butter). So... its guardians have included in its specifications a variety of fatty matter levels.

So that shuts the door to becoming an AOP (PDO)

And that's what makes it a unique cheese!

In France the IGP has often replaced regional labels.

 

H for Hâloir (Dry store)

The hâloir is a store for drying soft cheeses after salting and forming. In fact - a maturing cellar. The cheeses are first dried out, propped up at an angle on racks to eliminate surface water. Then its temperature is set according to the evolution of the cheese.

Auguste Lepetit from Normandy was the first to introduce refrigeration into his cellars to control the maturing process. These days, hâloirs are temperature controlled: increasing or lowering both its temperature and hygrometry as required while the cheeses develop. It is the cheese makers who manage the temperature, hygrometry, air circulation and gas level.

The cheeses are dried by rubbing. Not with a bath towel- even if they come out of a tub of brine! The picture this gives amuses youngsters a great deal when I tell them about it, but at least, they remember what I've said...

It is the controlled temperature "dryers" which led to the description "refrigerators" in the first cheese factory set up in the Auvergne. In Riom ès Montagne, to be precise... shortly before the First World War (1910).

 

G for Galium Verum (Gaillet in French)

In English, this is also popularly known as Lady's Bedstraw or Yellow Bedstraw – in France it is also called "Caille-Lait" = "Milk curdler".

On Wikipedia it is described as an herbaceous perennial plant of the Rubiaceae family, native to Europe and Asia, a low scrambling plant with stems growing 60-120cm long, frequently rooting where they touch the ground.

This plant was often used in the Poitou area of France (could this be the influence of the Moors who knew about their plants – in particular the fig tree and the thistle – which would cause their milk to curdle?). Vegetable and fungal rennets are less used as they can cause a bitter taste. But these are compulsory in certain Spanish PDOs.

And one shouldn't forget that lemon or vinegar can also be used to make milk curdle and turn it into fromage blanc – but that's about all! Although... if I remember well, to make bruccio (a Corsican fromage frais - goat or sheep) they precipitate the whey with lemon.

in Gloucestershire, it is used to colour the cheese Double Gloucester

A French reader of this blog wrote me that scientists doubt for a very long time the capacity of Gaillet to make the milk curdle. Diderot, d'Alembert and Parmentier, to quote only them but also modern researchers recently tried the experiment and deducted from it " what it remarkable there, it is that since Dioscoride until us there is not a single author who even dared to raise a doubt on the property of the caillelait. So as it is entitled to conclude that all the writers copied slavishly, and so they passed on an error a single experiment  would have so easily been able to annul. [] "!!

Pictures of Galium here

F for Faisselle (Cheese strainer)

This is a cheese mould, that comes in different shapes and sizes, with holes made in it so that the whey which is added can drain. The word comes from the Latin fiscellae. These strainers were originally made from baked clay, stoneware or porcelain, and later in wood, iron, aluminium, plastic... This particular mould is commonly used in the Centre-West region of France for goat cheese and in the South-East for cheese from cow's milk.

Two more related words:

FAISSELLIER : instrument used for pressing curds in Neufchatel cheese.

FAISCINE : word related to the above with Latin origin meaning a whey mould and used in the region around Tours.

And can also mean ... the cheese itself, fresh from the mould but still not properly drained. Fascinating, n'est-ce pas?

E for Eau – (not from Cologne – just plain H2O)

A vital liquid to be found in all organic liquids except oils. In the dairy world, you'll find residual water in both butter and buttermilk. When it comes to cheese, whey or serum contains a high percentage of water. And cow's milk contains 87.5% water. In the cheese world, they talk of "disposable" water, using an index called Aw. This is high in soft white cheese, for example.

On courses, I often ask my pupils what is the first thing you find in a camembert... it's water, quite simply! But be reassured, they don't use powdered milk to make cheese...

D for Dalle – (meaning a slab or paving stone)

A long wooden (or masonry) table, used in Normandy for draining cheeses. Its surface is slightly inclined to allow the serum to drain.

A "draining table" - I'd never heard of one of those!

C for Cabin girls – (Cabanières in French)

Nickname given to the ladies who worked in olden times in the production and care of Roquefort cheeses, and who resided in "cabanes" or cabins around the entrance to the underground cellars. Cabanières became the official title of the women working in the cellars, looking after the maturing process, sorting and cutting the cheeses, canning them, folding them, changing their form and content – in general all the attention the cheeses need.

Three cheers for the cabanières – ladies with plenty of character! And there's no masculine equivalent of them – either in the language or in fact. One has to say that the work is repetitive, hard and needing to be done meticulously... so, no comment! ;-)

B for Buttermilk - (Babeurre in French)

Continuing our cheesy alphabet, today's object is a liquid obtained in the manufacture of butter. In composition it is close to skimmed milk, but in contrast it is rich in phosphopeptides. In powdered form, it is mostly used in cattle feed or reconstituted milk. It is also an emulsifier (on account of its phospholipids). When concentrated through ultra filtration, it is also used as an ingredient in low-fat butters.

It can also be used in producing re-baked cheese, like other products derived from serum. It was the basic ingredient of gaperon, which comes from the Auvergne (though not any more). Farmers used to use it as animal feed (pigs). It can change in form from region to region.

In Germany, buttermilk is used as a milky drink, as the butter starter culture gives it a special taste, a little sour but appreciated by consumers.

A for Abbey

A special place blessed for its spirituality and culture, where monks played a beneficial role in feeding the poor in the Middle Ages. Three key product areas were covered: alcoholic drinks, cheeses and pâtisserie. Many traditional French cheeses have a monastic origin. For instance, Chaource from the Abbey of Pontigny - and of course Port Salut, from the abbey of the same name.

For many other products this name is followed by a geographic reference, such as Tamié in Savoie, Belloc in Béarn, Timadeuc in Brittany, Mont des Cats in Flanders, Cîteaux and Pierre qui Vive in Burgundy, not forgetting La Coudre in Mayenne, Echourgnac in Périgord or Belval in Pas de Calais.

Our friend Michel does not mention those "ruined" or deconsecrated abbeys which gave birth to great cheeses in their day, such as Munster, Maroilles or Abondance, made in monasteries of the same name, but also across the Swiss border, Tête de Moine from the Abbey de Bellelay, Gruyère from the Abbey de Rougemont. And since he wrote this "encyclopedia", a new Benedictine abbey has begun making cheese: Notre Dame de Donezan in Ariège, a farmhouse tomme cheese from the Pyrenees, made with raw milk from Tarentaise cows, which is quite exceptional.

But why did monks and nuns opt for cheese making? Because it is easier to feed people who come knocking at their door, with milk rather than meat! And hospitality is a blessing ... so nobody can be left to die of hunger. If you kill a cow, it only can serve you once ... if you milk it, it can feed you for nigh on 300 days.

In addition, as meat was considered a meal for the rich, it was generally banished from the tables of monks, sworn as they were to poverty.

Talking of which, if I shut my eyes, I can picture my monastic friends, Brothers Matthieu, Raphaël, Yvon, and Nathanaël - as well as Sisters Annie, Marie-Pierre and all in the nunnery - and I invite you to look them up on the recently updated website of the Monastic Association - www.monastic-euro.org

A to Z – a new alphabet of cheese

This is to be a new regular feature of this blog, thanks to Michel JAMES, a great enthusiast of milk and cheese, who's been very active all around France and who shared in that fine undertaking – the creation of Lactopôle – the largest dairy museum in France - in Laval (between Le Mans et Rennes). As well as systematically scouring the attics of cheese factories, I have seen him hunting around and finding in the most out-of-the-way spots, aspects of the history of the milk and cheese business.

These days in very active retirement, he still is a contributor to the professional monthly publication – "Profession Fromager" and is enthusiastic about safeguarding French cheese heritage.

Look out through the months ahead for an alphabet of explanations, discoveries and memories. "A to Z" begins with "Abbey" – quite symbolic – and will finish with "Zebu", though this translator cannot guarantee to be able to reflect this abc logic in la version anglaise!