Caseophile

Cheese from Cabo Verde (Cape Verde)

Back from a welcome break in those volcanic islands, Cape Verde, I can confirm that they do have cheeses there.

There the cows like the goats are tied up - usually by one leg - and are fed by men who bring them sugar cane or banana leaves as fodder. So it's useless to imagine they give a lot of milk! So on the shelves of their stores (loja /merceria) or more westernised supermarkets, you'll usually find Belgian milk powder or bottles of sterilised milk.

One of my friends had me taste some yoghourt she had made herself using a certain brand of powdered milk, to which she had of course added water and a local yoghourt to provide it with starter cultures. All it needed was to be placed in a more or less ambient temperature for it to curdle. Hardly a sophisticated yoghourt maker! My friend simply kept it hidden from flying or crawling insects...in her switched off oven!

But let's come back to the subject of cheese.Traditionally it has been women who transformed the "excess" milk into cheese and sold it in the market (while not keeping it constantly in the cold, let it be said).

Thanks to the input of the European Union, some small cheese makers have seen the day in recent years. Using both goats' as well as cows' milk, they are mainly producing small cheeses (100-200g maximum), mostly sold fresh. With mixed curds, high rennet, fairly elastic. With papaya preserve, it's a real feast. And that's how the locals eat it.

From time to time on the island of Santo Antao, you may find a little goat tomme cheese that is firmer with a trace of creamy coloured rind... I loved it! And I took the chance of bringing some back to France when I was lucky enough to find some vacuum packed.

My friends from that part of the world use a strange technique to mature these little cheeses: they leave them for 2-3 months in sealed containers in the fridge. Professionals will shout with horror, as these cheeses are still "alive", releasing heat and humidity and this leads to condensation which in contact with the cheeses gives them a bitter taste.

...And if you take into account all the times the electricity shuts off on the island of Santiago, you can bet the bacterial activity gets intense! What's surprising is that the result is often very pleasant but varies considerably from initial producer to producer. I've my own preferences!! But you won't find them in France, of course...

So if you wish to try some, your only solution is ... to make a trip there yourself!

Black Brie cheese – est-ce possible ?

I'm talking about old Brie. Matured for 12, 18, even more than 24 months before being put on sale. Basically a Brie de Meaux, whose extremely long maturing period takes away its white/red complexion which blackens and dries. To such an extent that it ends up losing over a third of its original weight.

I was surprised to see it a few weeks ago in the Carrefour hypermarket in Pontault Combaut (just to the SE of Paris). However an article which appeared in the (French) publication "Profession Fromager" told me that dry black Brie is not a fringe item. Even if sales are limited on a local basis.

This brought to mind a question I had from one of my lady customers recently: "What do you think of those very dry and very black goat cheeses you can find in some markets?"

My reply was that traditionally they were macerated in alcohol or aromatic oil, rather than being left to dry. If she liked the taste of such dry cheeses, she should just go ahead. It isn't a crime! Everybody to their own tastes... Personally I'm no great fan as I'm very sensitive to "soapy" aromas, which I find disagreeable. But we're all made different – thank heavens!

Goat cheese with a four-leaved clover shape – a detective story

A piece of news to those interested in cheese history! The goat cheese producers of Le Perche (in NW France) are trying to find out the origin of the mould in the shape of a four leaved clover, which they have been using for some years. They'd like to know why and for exactly how long this rather special shaped mould has been used – particularly in this region, where you're more likely to find cows and horses, but less so its goats. The mould was found in a local museum, but it was not known whether it was originally used for cheese making or something else.

But now it's the shape of farmhouse goat cheese – made from raw or full cream milk (without frozen or frozen curds) matured for about 12 days, covered with ash, nice and soft. Mmmm! It is said it can be found at the Rungis market near Paris. Let me know if you've found any cheese shops selling this marvel.

For more info (in French), go to the website of the Goat Cheese producers of Perche et Loir.

The Slow Food organisation promotes “Tradition Salers” cheese

In the past week, Slow Food France (click here for their website – in French), whose role - in contrast to "fast food" - is the protection and the promotion of our country's food culture and agricultural diversity, has awarded the title of "sentinelle" (sentry) to "Tradition Salers" cheese.

A sentry belongs to a system for safeguarding and/or relaunching a quality food product by promoting it among amateurs and professionals. Originating in Italy, where it is a great success, there are now 300 sentries around the world.

This nomination means that Slow Food, together with producers and their partners, handle the marketing of this cheese with technical and financial support. As a sentry, Tradition Salers becomes a member of the Arche du Goût (Ark of Good Taste) – a label for such foodstuffs produced organically on a small scale over a long period. They are of the highest quality, linked to a particular region, but in danger of disappearing.

Salers cheese generally has been a PDO for many years... 50 this year, to be precise! And of the 94 farmhouse, seasonal and mountain-based producers, 10 have chosen to display the wording "Salers Tradition" rather than "Salers Salers" on their cheeses, to signify that they only use milk from cows of the Salers breed, raised and milked traditionally, once their calves have initiated their milking.

For making a PDO Salers cheese, a special "gerle de bois" or wooden barrel is always to be used, as is "farmhouse" production (from 15 April to 15 November) up in the hills ... twice a day, quickly after milking and not to be cooled, with the cows fed solely on grass, maturing over 3 months at the very least ... but the breed of cow is not specified in the PDO decree…

Salers are a mixed breed, raised for the quality of their meat as well as of their milk. But Salers are difficult cattle to milk. Careful of their offspring, they take care that their calves are sated before they allow themselves to be milked.

Is that true? It's a fact accepted by generations of stock breeders, with more than one of them giving up, tired of taking too much time milking, and gradually introducing Montbeliardes or other cows in their herds.

I'm not taking sides between those who have given up on tradition and those who remain faithful to it. All I'll say is that the taste and smell of a cheese develops differently according to the milks used in its production, their fat and protein content, which varies according to their breed.

PDO recognition for Swiss Gruyere

Last week I was put into a good mood when reading the Figaro Economie journal where it was stated that French producers of PDO Gruyere had been ruled out of court by the EU which declared that the region in which the maturing process of the cheese took place extended well outside the actual production zone ... in other words, the relationship between cheese and geography was out of kilter. And they had therefore asked the French to adopt the IGP label (=PGI Geographic Protection Indicator) rather than PDO.

I've already said here what I thought of the French Gruyere dossier which had recognised it as an AOC in 2007, although the Swiss had been awarded this status in 2001. (Le Figaro newspaper reporter actually got the dates mixed up!)

So I was very pleased to read last week on the RFI site that the mutual recognition process regarding the issue of guaranteed origin had really started at last between Switzerland and the EU. It's been such a long time now since Swiss AOC specifications became "eurocompatible", so I find it all simply irritating red tape...

So hat's off, gentlemen for recognising the tradition, the know-how and the importance of the terroir in identifying certain Swiss products – from Etivaz cheese to Ribelmaïs (maize) not forgetting dried meats from the Valaisor Emmentaler...

More info on Swiss AOC products to be found on www.aoc-igp.ch

Smoky cheese

There's no artificial flavouring in this cheese – it's all natural! And that's a sufficiently rare statement to make, so it's worth saying. Say hello to Brézain – which has been smoked over beech wood to give it a "come again" taste, hot or cold.

Brézain in fact is a raclette cheese produced at La Balme de Thuy, near Thônes, which is close to Annecy in the Haute Savoie mountain area. A newcomer... well, so what? If those good people in Research and Development come up with something good, it has to be talked about, don't you think?

So here's a big hello in passing to those friends of mine who are marketing it!

The Gruyere guerrilla

The French National Assembly has been up in arms recently about the slow progress in the recognition of French Gruyere as a PDO.

Source: Le Figaro newspaper (in French).

Yes indeed, the European Commission is weighing up two requests for PDO recognition of this cheese – one from Switzerland and the other from France.

Switzerland recognised Gruyere as an AOC (CDO : controlled denomination of origin) in 2001, France in 2007 after complex negotiations with the French network… and yet Brussels is now declaring that the French case is "insufficiently supported".

Well think what you may but I've already expressed my point of view on this blog. You can compare the French supporting evidence for its own Gruyere on its site www.gruyere-france.fr. and the Swiss case (www.gruyere.com). But unless you are an expert in cheese technology , just take a look at the geographical areas in question … to my mind, there is little sense of unity in an area which goes from the Haute Marne department to the Isère…

Could that be one of the main sticking points in the eyes of the European Commission? Apart from the fact that the very word Gruyere comes from the Gruyere region in the Swiss canton of Fribourg – indded from a little town called Gruyeres?

At what temperature should you serve cheese?

All too often I have been served cheese straight from the fridge in ordinary restaurants. I'm sure you'll have suffered in the same way. Say you are in your staff canteen or the local supermarket café and you get that irresistible urge for some cheese and all you get served is a very icy slice on a lettuce leaf so it stands out from the white plate. And you consume it without any pleasure whatsoever.

That's normal. Aromatic molecules need some warmth to come alive and a small amount of such heat will give a cheese a softer and more pleasant texture so that it melts in the mouth without your needing to salivate or nibble at it – well you get the picture – all rather disastrous!

;-)

So I'd like to congratulate the head of a restaurant in Aurillac I go to. They avoid sticking to the rule of serving cheese while it is cool. Here they display cheeses (from the Auvergne, I probably don't need to tell you) set out already cut in pieces by the checkout – as "impulse purchases". Just to see them "breathing" at room temperature makes them irresistible.

But in addition, it's not just to protect their cheeses that certain restaurant operators only bring them out at the last moment. If the room is hot, then they will quickly start to sweat. And then when they are put back into the fridge, they can end up going "crackly" – a catastrophe!

So to keep it cool or not during the service – that is the question. But when you're at home just keep your cheese out rather than in the cold. That way you won't have to remember to take it out an hour before the meal…

Cheese and Wasabi

Two words which do not seem to belong together, as Japan, homeland of wasabi has hardly any cheese tradition!

And yet several cheese makers have tried it out. And I've even noticed on a stall here in Lorraine a fresh goat cheese with wasabi.

This belongs to Patrick Marchand, a well-known cheese "affineur" from Nancy who has been working for a few years now with a Japanese cheese maker running a business in Japan as well as one in Paris – Madame Hisada (website in english).

Our Lorraine cheese seller took several years to find the right balance and the resulting recipe is marvellous with a fascinating burst of aromas to intrigue our European palates!

Well I read recently on a Canadian website (in elglish, too) that a producer from the Vancouver area (influenced by the Olympic Games??) is making a unique cheese of this kind – Verdelait with wasabi, a semi-hard cheese, described as a cross between a Gouda and a raclette. I have to smile, as I know that "my" Lorraine cheese maker has been recently in Japan and did not go off empty handed… Indeed the 130 years of the Maison Marchand company will be the subject of a creative celebration this year!

It’s official! Charolais cheese becomes an AOC

This time last year I talked to you about this declaration, saying it was in the offing… and now it's for real. Charolais is officially an AOC (Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée) cheese – that's to say not yet an AOP (PDO to you in Britain), though the dossier for this must have gone off quickly to Brussels after this French green light.

This summarises the main points of the French Institute press release:

"Charolais" becomes the 46^th cheese to be awarded an AOC

"Charolais" cheeses are made from unpasteurised full cream goat's milk. They are upright, cylindrical in shape and slightly convex, a creamy coloured, firm and smooth cheese. After a minimum 16 day period of maturing, its weight is between 250 and 310 grams, with a maximum diameter of between 60 and 70 mm, and its height is between 70 and 85 mm.

Its rind varies from beige to ivory when young to become bluish with mould. Streaks mainly of blue penicillium may appear during maturing.

Charolais contains at least 45 grams of dry matter per 100 grams of cheese.

Charolais is produced in the heart of the Charolais bocage. The geographical area of the AOC covers 252 communes in which milk production and the making and maturing of cheeses occur, with 3 communes singled out for the maturing of cheese alone.

The heritage of Charolais derives from an ancient tradition of raising goats and making cheeses in the cattle farms of the Charolais and Brionnais regions. Raising goats appeared very early as a complementary activity to the breeding and fattening of cattle, but it was in the 1960s that cheese production using pure goat's milk took off. For a long time it was limited to Burgundy and the north of the Rhône-Alpes region, but the notoriety of Charolais has increased greatly since 1970 with the rise of commercial activity in the major Parisian markets. Even today it is essentially farmhouse production among traditional small scale farmers.

As is the case with every product awarded an AOC, tests undertaken by independent organisations guarantee the respect of conditions of production and also the issues of geographic coverage.

Facts and figures

16 farmhouse producers – 1 maturer and 1milk transformation centre – 59 tonnes produced in 2009 = 210,723 cheeses and 1,171,000 litres of milk produced – 724 goat farms to be found in the geographical region in 2008.

Calcium – is it good for you or bad?

I have often spoken about this subject. It is said by some to be good by others to be bad – and I am often asked to throw some light on the question.

When I heard the reaction of Doctor Guéguen, a specialist in calcium, on this subject, I thought some of you might be interested to learn about it – even though it goes back to June 2008. If you know French, then you can read it (in French) on the VALORIAL website (a food comparison organisation in Rennes).

Doctor Guéguen also made this declaration, which I like a lot:

"I am stepping aside from the teleological argument and also from accepted facts, such as "cow's milk is made for calves and not for humans" or "man has only drunk milk for the past few thousand years" or especially "man is the only animal which continues to consume milk after weaning". One has to add, in answer to this last point that he is also the only species which has learned to milk cows!

Translator's P.S: Yes, I admit that I had to look up what a "teleological argument" is all about. Quote from my Oxford Dictionary: "The argument for the existence of God from the evidence of order, and hence design, in nature."

Do we need all this packaging?...

A fortnight or so ago the European Week for waste reduction took place. And unnecessary packaging was under the spotlight.

So how about cheese packaging?

This gives me the chance to complain about certain types of cheese packaging where you pay for the pack as well as what's inside…

All right, I do understand the issues of preservation, practicality and ease of use… but wait a minute! Too much is sometimes too much. Yes, to allow a cheese to continue maturing there's nothing like a little wood to control its humidity, a little time to allow it to age, a little space to store cheeses that have been sold on much too young … and correct temperatures (in a cellar or cold store).

But do we really need a plastic cover to mature a camembert? A thick container to protect a mere slice? A cardboard outer around what was once sold as a simple sachet? A kind of plastic box to help in "turning out" a cheese? And so on … there are numerous examples.

So today I'll take this opportunity to say STOP. It's all too much.

I can see (and for good reason) the marketing interest in certain practices but not the technical necessity. Just ask yourself the question about any new type of pack – is it there to protect the cheese or simply to make the brand stand out, to make it look more modern (against its competitors) or a procedure to justify a price increase and a better profit?

But that's just my point of view…

 

Cabécou d’Autan cheese

This cheese was awarded a "label rouge" in 1996 but before going into its background, what or where is Autan?

First it's the name of a sea wind which blows from the south / south west into the Roussillon, Languedoc and the Midi-Pyrénées area of Southern France. There is also a small region named "pays d'Autan" between Castres and Mazamet … but if you look closely the wind blows well beyond there … which perhaps explains why producers of Cabécou d'Autan have not been moved to protect their name with an AOC /AOP (PDO in the UK) but have simply settled for a recognition of quality by means of a Label Rouge.

It's clearly difficult to justify a precise region ("terroir") for this wine, when these producers are to be found in the Tarn, Tarn et Garonne, Haute Garonne and even the Lot, Lot-et-Garonne and Aveyron departments. Although… there is one AOC goat cheese in this terroir and that's Rocamadour.

So what is Cabécou d'Autan? Which you shouldn't confuse with its neighbour Cabécou du Périgord? Well the word Cabécou means a "little goat cheese" in the local Occitan language.

And the producers of Cabécou d'Autan have striven to ensure that the quality of their cheese is regularly tested and recognised as being superior to other small goat cheeses: this is how the "label rouge" works – not as a guarantee of origin but of quality.

It's a raw milk cheese, fresh and unskimmed, formed by hand (a flat round shape – about 75gm), with a thin rind, partly matured.

The goats are reared in flocks – maximum 250 in number – held in pastures for at least 6 months of the year in high hilly areas over 800 metres altitude.

Another characteristic: traditional fermentation using whey from the farm.

In 2008, 10 producers made 2 tonnes of this tasty Cabécou d'Autan (for figures see IRQUALIM)

Making your own cheese at home

I've already spoken here about this possibility offered by a Swiss company – but this time it's an initiative from France and can be found on the www.fromage-maison.com website (but only in French). You can buy from them a kit comprising two moulds and the necessary starters and rennet for making your cheese.

 

"Le fromage à la maison"

Anne-Marie COQUARD

Route d'Ars (D.936)

01600 Saint Didier de Formans

Tel : (33) 4 74 00 65 48

Fax : (33) 4 74 00 66 40

e-mail: fromage.maison@coquard.fr

 

When I read about it, the penny dropped on seeing the name "Coquard", as they are suppliers of equipment and products used in the production of farmhouse cheese, based in Villefranche sur Saône … and I find their idea of dealing directly with the consumer and not just the cheese industry in this way interesting from an educational viewpoint.

So I pass on the news with great pleasure.

Fromage de Bergues (Nord) – that’s not made in Bergues?

That's a question recently asked in the Voix du Nord newspaper, and it made me smile.

The answer's simple! Because it has become customary to name the cheese after the market in which it is sold almost exclusively…

At one time there were around 200 producers of this cheese; today there remain only around 15, some of whom created in February 2005 a group called "Association Fromage de Bergues Tradition". You can find a description in French on the Groupement Qualité Nord Pas de Calais website. Their aim is to promote the specific qualities of this cheese … in anticipation of an AOC/AOP (PDO) recognition.

The Bergues is a semi hard farmhouse cheese, about 2kg in weight (20-30 cm in diameter x 6 cm high) made with raw milk, partially skimmed and rubbed with beer

So best of luck to this contender for an AOC – it's a long road ahead!

From the newspaper's website, here's a photo of a label design adopted by 8 producers.

 

 

 

Tomorrow’s cheese? No today’s…

In Metz a week or so ago there took place an exhibition of French food industry suppliers (the CFIA). I was particularly interested by the section dealing with ingredient suppliers and "intermediate food product" suppliers. What was to be found there when it came to cheeses?

Not a wasted trip! And here are some interesting pictures – though you won't find these particular products on supermarket shelves as they are for the catering business.

1) From AB Technologies-France Fromage, a process where cheese is liquefied … so can be pumped, put through a dispenser, mixed when cold (I particularly like the way the different products are displayed in this showcase – bravo!)

2) Cheese can be spread hot, cold, for cooking, or as an accompaniment in sauce - from AB Technologies as well as from Eurial

3) Or else, it is simply an ingredient destined for certain specific uses and available in a practical form for immediate use (powder, pod, sheet or thread etc...) And at reasonable prices!

But don't worry, it still remains cheese, i.e. it's made from milk, starters, rennet and salt … simply available in forms you are not accustomed to … and probably will never see…

PDO recognition on the horizon for a Swiss cheese?

This is all about a cheese which has been under review since June 2005 in its application to acquire an official AOC/AOP (PDO in English) recognition. It comes under 3 names: "Werdenberger Sauerkäse", "Liechtensteiner Sauerkäse" and "Bloderkäse".

The Swiss Federal Departement of Agriculture website gives some details (in French, German, Italian or "romanche") about this triple-named cheese, low in calories, originating from the East of Switzerland, just next to Liechtenstein and which has been known since the Middle Ages:

"Bloderkäse is a fromage frais (fresh cheese) with no affinage (aging). It has a firm consistency and can be cut into pieces. When ripe, it transforms into a "Sauerkäse" (sour cheese), when a layer of yellowish fat forms around the cheese and develops slowly inside it, thanks to a specific aging process. With its typical very strong taste, "Sauerkäse" is appreciated by many in its home region. It has a long tradition, recognised since the Middle Ages in Obertoggenburg, Werdenberg, in the commune of Amden and the Principality of Liechtenstein. Its transformation into a sour cheese with lactic bacteria and without rennet is even considered to be the original cheese making process. "Bloderkäse" in fact owes its name to this special process: the milk literally "gurgles" (blodert) as the cheese develops.

If you understand German, go to the association of producers website, or some French, try the Swiss Association AOC/IGP.

This cheese has only very recently made its application… so any opposition to it must be made in under 3 months. It’s not yet got its AOC/AOP!

Liergues blue cheese

It's log-shaped and so might be called a "fourme", but it seems to me that this term really belongs to a type of cheese made in the Auvergne, whereas this Liergues cheese originates from the Beaujolais region.

Anyway it was when I was recently in Lyon that I first came across this cheese.

Yes I agree, some may find it strange that with my pretence to be an expert in cheeses, I don't know them all. Yet there are many which have only a very local reputation… and a very limited production. As is the case for Liergues.

But just pop a bit in your mouth! It's unlike "Fourme d'Ambert" or "Fourme de Montbrison" or other blue "logs" made in this region. A "consistent" texture both firm and melting… you can easily cut it into cubes for an aperitif and serve it on toothpicks.

It's made by: La Fromagerie du Grand Passeloup in 69400 Liergues

Or if you're in Lyon, from Le Fromager de St Georges – 11 rue Mgr Lavarenne, 5 quai Fulchiron 69005 Lyon.

And I did not get around to taking a photo, but I'm feeling rather whacked at the moment…

 

Bleu d’Auvergne AOP has a new website

Just launched – and unfortunately for us only in French – is an appetising website about mouth-watering Bleu d’Auvergne AOP. If you don’t read French, you can always pay it a visit (www.fromage-aop-bleu-auvergne.com) if only to appreciate the photos.

 

There is a video of Didier Larroucau, the President of the SIRBA (the Interregional Syndicate of B d’A) talking about the “career path” of the cheese.

 From the website you will also learn that the cheese in its present form goes back to 1855, (although a blue cheese did exist in Auvergne before that date). This was when major innovations occurred in its production - thanks to Antoine Roussel and his development of their particular “blue powder” and the machine to “prick” the cheese. These two remain key aspects in the making of Bleu d’Auvergne AOP up to the present day.

Further improvements in the making of the cheese have been introduced in recent times – notably in animal foodstuffs and milk collection as well as greater respect for the local “terroir”. Bleu d’Auvergne got its AOC in 1975 and more recently was granted a European AOP (PDO in English).

The SIRBA claims this recognition provides added reassurance in highly competitive retail markets that consumers can have total confidence in what they are buying.

 

Beaufort PDO cheese

AOC (=PDO) since 1968

Regional origin: Beaufortain, Maurienne, Tarentaise and a part of the Val d'Arly … all in Savoie, close to the French Alps.

Dimensions: 35-75 cm in diameter, 11-16 cm high

Weight: 20-70kg

Matured for a minimum of 5 months

Annual Production: 4,300 tonnes (2007) – 7 permanent cooperatives, 2 milk traders, 29 individual producers, 6 pastoral groups, 2 maturing centres.

 

A little history:

The name "Beaufort" for the cheese only first appeared in 1865… but this cheese has a history which goes back a lot further than that! The know-how arising from the traditional production of what was called "vachelin" in the Middle Ages and that of gruyere cheese led from the 17^th century to the making of "grivoire", similar to Beaufort.

One of our best known chroniclers, Pliny the Younger, already mentioned it in the 1^st century AD in Rome. In the Middle Ages, the monastic and village communities cleared the alpine slopes to feed their herds and use the cheese not only as food in wintertime, but also as barter.

 

The concept of keeping herds, as well as making and maturing the cheese on a collective basis, has been extremely important in this region. And the co-operative system is still to be found in the severe conditions of these inhospitable mountains, where the men worked together to optimise their production in their search for the richest pastures possible.

 

The making of Beaufort :

Milk is reheated up to 33°, then curdled using a natural rennet derived from a calf's abomasum and from "recuite" (whey from the previous day). The curds are chopped up finely and then gently heated up to a temperature of 54°C. They are then gathered in a linen sheet and put into a mould in a circle of wood, which gives the cheese its very characteristic concave "heel". Once formed and salted, the Beaufort is put into a cellar to mature for 5-12 months, during which each round of cheese is carefully monitored, rubbed with salty water and turned over in order to have a homogenous consistency.

 

• "Summer Beaufort" is the name given to dairy production carried out from June to October inclusive, including that using alpine meadow milk.
• "Alpine Chalet Beaufort" - sometimes simply called in error "Beaufort d'alpage" – covers summertime farmhouse production (milk from a single herd), made using traditional techniques twice a day just after milking, in chalets situated above 1500 metres in altitude.

 

Did you know?

• Only two breeds of cow provide milk to make Beaufort: Tarine cows coming from the Tarentaise area and recognisable by their brown coat and Abondance cows with their "spectacles" (those brown rings around their eyes)
• You need more than 10 litres of milk to make a kilo of Beaufort
• Beaufort is called "the Prince of Gruyères" – it's in fact the biggest hard cheese in size and its melty texture is inimitable!
• You can tell a Beaufort from afar by its concave heel, due to the circle of wood used for centuries to "take hold of" the cheese, leaving this attractive concave shape.

 

Some tips – choosing, cutting, tasting

• Examine its rind which will vary from orangey yellow to rusty brown, and also the colour of the cheese itself. If it's pale yellow, it will be a Beaufort made in wintertime. Ivory, and it's a Beaufort made in summer, when the cows are fed on fresh grass… its texture will melt even better in your mouth.
• If you use it in cooking, never grate it but cut it in strips… Or else cubes, or even better sticks, particularly keeping a piece of the rind on them, so that your guests can appreciate its colour.
• Children are particularly fond of this cheese, thanks to its texture and its consistent –but not strong or sharp – taste. You can eat it by itself or with just a glass of white wine from Savoie (in moderation!)

 

More info on Beaufort on www.fromage-beaufort.com

The craziest cheese

The Est-Éclair newspaper from the Aube area of North-East France just recently announced the result of a jolly little competition, which took place during the recent cheese fair in Bar sur Aube to find "the craziest cheese".

The profession itself chose to reward the title to the GAEC Chambon (farming group) in the Doubs area for their cheese macerated in Mayotte spices, rubbed with walnut wine and sprinkled with ginger and poppy seeds. As for the general public, they gave their vote to the Maison Ozérée, established 40 years ago in Rilly Saint Syre (in the Aube department), which matures and sells all sorts of cheeses in local markets. Their curious speciality: a camembert stuffed with a layer of potato fried in salted butter, flambéed in cavaldos and coated with hazelnuts.

Mmmm! Not that crazy!

Walnut Echourgnac

My gourmandise has made me commit the sin of tasting a monastic cheese. But it's worth doing it!

The Trappist sisters of Echourgnac in Dordogne have for many years now been making a delicious cheese matured in walnut liqueur. And it's a winner – I'm not the only one to be won over by it! Such a success in fact that they have begun to share their recipe with the monks of the Abbey of Timadeuc in Brittany, as they cannot keep up with demand!

One should not forget that cheese making is not one of the goals of monasteries or nunneries. If the rule of St Benedict states: "thou shalt live by the work of thy hands", this should never be at the detriment of spiritual life.

Anyway, be like me and buy these truly monastic cheeses – it will be your contribution to the livelihood of these nuns and monks hidden away from the world.. From good cheese shops or on the net at the agape site (in English!).

And how about going to see them to buy some? That way you'll see how a religious community lives…

And what to drink with it? Well… a walnut wine, for example (remind me to give you my recipe this coming July, when the walnuts are on the trees but still

Gorgonzola PDO

PDO since 1955

Origin: Piedmont – Lombardy

1000 milk producers

40 cheese makers

Weight: 12kg

Annual Production: 4 million cheeses – i.e : 48,000 tonnes

 

A little history:

Gongonzola gets its name from a small locality near Milan, where trade in this great cheese has been recorded as far back as 879.

Some maintain that it originates in fact from Pasturo in the Valsassina region; a major cheese centre for centuries, thanks to the presence of natural grottos whose mean temperature remains between 6 – 12°C and allows Gorgonzola (and other cheeses) to mature perfectly. It was originally referred to as "stracchino de Gorgonzola" or "green stracchino" … and its mould has been recognised since the 14^th century.

Manufacture:

Gorgonzola is a veined whole milk cheese. The principle is to "surround" the curd dices to ensure their "hearts" remain moist  to ensure they do not dissolve into each other in the mould, and so that little spaces are created where the pénicillium glaucum is able to develop.

Depending on what sort of penicillium is chosen, one can make a "mild" Gorgonzola – 5 weeks minimum maturation or a "strong" version – matured for between 90 and 110 days.

Gorgonzola mascarpone is not in fact a cheese but a preparation made by introducing, into a Gorgonzola, layers of mascarpone (which is made from adding lemon juice or vinegar into a cheese) – here is a Gorgonzola mascarpone imported into France by the Perinter company.

Words of Advice

• I buy it when it looks nicely runny, that's when it releases all its aromas … and when it clearly has an aluminium wrapper with the letter "g" printed on it.
• "Strong" gorgonzola is just marvellous with a Muscat type sweet wine or a Marsala (drunk in moderation, of course). Not forgetting Belgian Trappist beer (Chimay, Leffe)
• As for mild creamy Gorgonzola, get out your red or white wines that are a touch mellow (as we are in Italy here, their reds can be mellow…): Riesling, Pinot Blanc, Merlot (not ex-barrel) … and new wines generally. Or pale double malt beer.

Check out the Consortium website.

Picodon PDO

PDO since                 1983

Geographic origin      Drôme and Ardèche = cantons in Valréas (Vaucluse) and Barjac (Gard)

Size                            "classic" : disc shape 5-7cm across x 1.8-2.5 cm thick

                                  "matured by Dieulefit method" : 4.5-6 cm across x 1.3-2.5 cm thick

Weight            60g for the "classic", 45g for the "Dieulefit"

Maturing period    Minimum14 days for the "classic" Picodon, 1 month for the Dieulefit method

Annual Production    600 tonnes – 125 farmers / 4 cheese making units / 4 maturers

A little history:

Several ways of translating the word picodon exist – from the Franco-Provençal meaning "stings the tongue" to the Occitan word for "little" – with varied spellings. In this region of the pre-Alps of the Drôme department and the foothills of the Ardèche Massif Central, the goat is the only milking animal. And what happens when the source of the milk dries up in winter during the goats' gestation period? You get cheese! Small cheeses - as the goat can give only a little milk each day (3 litres on average), but they can quickly be ready to be eaten (just a few weeks) or be kept for some time (several months), especially if they are put into olive oil.

The first written references to its existence date back to the 14th century, being known in Dieulefit, Tournon, Valréas, and even St Félicien in the Ardèche.

How Picodon is made

Picodon is obtained from a slow lactic coagulation with very little rennet, but in contrast to Crottin de Chavignol for example, there is no pre-draining in a bag: the forming of the cheese is done directly with the ladle. Each cheese is turned over at least once in its mould. After removing it, the Picodon is salted on both sides before it is matured. The "classic" maturing process allows 14 days to obtain a fairly dry cheese, with an attractive natural white rind or one that's just turning blue.

The "Dieulefit" maturing method is a damper process: the first fortnight it takes place in a very humid cellar, to allow its blue mould to develop, after which the cheese is washed twice in pure water to remove this mould and to humidify the Picodon again. Finally the last stage in the maturing process takes place in a location with a saturated humidity level for a minimum of 8 days, which leads to the characteristic texture of "Dieulefit maturing method" Picodon … and its special taste. You must try it as soon as you can!

And did you know?

-    Not more than 10 goats are allowed per hectare of real pasture land or land producing fodder or cereals destined for feeding goats, which should not be permanently fenced in… they must be allowed exercise in the open air, weather permitting.

-    A half to three quarters of a litre of milk is needed to make a Picodon.

-    It was awarded its PDO in 1983 under the name of "Picodon de l'Ardèche or de la Drôme" but since the year 2000, it has been known just as "Picodon", thanks to the tenacity of the producers who fought to make the PDO "local". So it is no longer allowed to sell, under the name Picodon, cheeses that do not respect the traditions of their region.

How to … choose, keep, cut, taste….

-    A few blue spots do not mean that the cheese is "off" – far from it! These traces of mould happily add to the fine "goaty" taste of Picodon. Fresh, dry or very runny, it's up to you to savour it… and decide just how you like it. As for me, I could never resist a Picodon of the Dieulefit variety, certainly because of the fact that I rarely find it outside the SE corner of France!

-    As an appetiser, toasted, dipped in olive or walnut oil, in eau-de-vie or white wine… everything is possible with Picodon…

-    And why not with very runny thyme-flavoured honey?

-    My favourite mix: when it is dry, enjoy it with a white wine.- and there are many to choose from in that part of the world. I personally go for a Tricastin - with its touch of Viognier.

If the cheese is moist or new, a red wine that's not too tannic could provide it with some compatible aromatic notes… or else, a rosé wine. From the Côteaux de l'Ardèche, of course… as always in moderation!

More info on www.picodon-aoc.fr

Protection of PDO cheeses: International agreements

How to protect PDOs has been a subject of much international action. The OriGin association, based in Geneva has been battling since 2003 to defend against abusive use of denominations by countries other than their country of origin.

Their latest success: Initial court proceedings by the EU Tribunal came out in support of the term "Budweiser" remaining associated solely with a Czech beer! Can you imagine the commercial effects of such a decision?

So it is not unusual that the INAO (National Institute for Denomination of Origin) should sign a convention with the INPI (National Institute fo Intellectual Property) to better protect our Denominations of Origin.

From a national perspective, the convention aims to take into account more clearly the relationship between brands and their geographic coverage. Internationally, the objective is to develop actions which ensure better protection for French nationals having an industrial property right or French producers using a geographic reference. In particular, collaboration is intended concerning the process of registering brands as well as enhancing the flow of information to parties concerned, and reciprocal information between the two Institutes.

Roquefort PDO

It's thanks to Roquefort that the whole idea of a Denomination of Origin was created for cheeses in France back in 1925.

Geographic origin: Aveyron and several neighbouring cantons, in the heart of Les Grands Causses area.

Size: 20cm in diameter – 8.5 to 11.5 cm high.

Weight: 2.5 – 3 kg – 12 liters of milk required to make a Roquefort

Minimum maturing time: 3 months

Annual production: 19,000 tons – 7 cheese makers

 

A little history

One will never know who was the first to make Roquefort… According to legend, a shepherd left some rye bread and curdled milk in a grotto and several weeks (months?) later, starving, he returned and ate the mildewed curdled milk … to discover with amazement its strong yet really pleasant taste?

The first written record dates from the 11th century. A donation to the monastery of Conques mentions among its revenues, two cheeses to be supplied by each one of the Roquefort cellars.

The inhabitants of Roquefort started protecting their cheese very early on! From the 15th century and the time of Joan of Arc, King Charles VII awarded franchises to this area "where no vine nor corn is grown". And there are royal charters between 1407 and 1732 granting Roquefort the monopoly of the production of this cheese.

An extremely important edict from the Parliament of Toulouse in 1666 punishes merchants making false Roqueforts… produced outside the region, or more often than not made from cow's milk… and awards to the inhabitants the monopoly of this cheese making "such as it has been practiced since time immemorial in the grottos of the said village".

Roquefort then was the first cheese to be recognized as an AOC in 1925, i.e. barely 6 years after the introduction of legislation protecting wine denominations … and a long time before other cheeses.

 

How Roquefort is made

Raw full cream milk is firstly curdled with rennet, then sprinkled with powders and cultures of Penicillium roqueforti, prepared from natural strains present in the microclimate of caves in the region.

These caves are to be found in the heart of those parts of the plateau of the Combalou which have collapsed (2km long and 300 meters wide). These have rifts which are crucial to the natural ventilation of the caves and which allow the Roquefort cheese to mature properly… These rifts are called "fleurines" because they produce the "bloom" (=la fleur) on the cheese.

 

Did you know?

-12 liters of milk are needed to make a Roquefort… while a Lacaune ewe gives on average only about two liters of milk a day … in other words 260 liters from mid-November to end July. Only 10% of flocks produce milk outside this period.

-Ewe's milk is very rich, and is hardly ever drunk and infrequently transformed into butter; therefore there was often a cow kept among the sheep for domestic milk consumption. Any of this milk left over was also made into "Roquefort-type" cheese and was matured outside the Roquefort commune in what were called 'bastard" caves. This is the origin of another great PDO cheese: Bleu des Causses, produced in the Gorges du Tarn.

-Have you noticed that all the Roquefort labels show a logo with a red ewe? This trade mark has existed since 1930.

 

Hints: how to choose, cut, taste….

-The colour of the cheeses goes from white to ivory, with veins of blue to green mould… Depending on the type of penicillium used, the cellar in which the mould has evolved and the length of the maturing period, the texture is very different. Firm or runny? I've a big soft spot for Roqueforts which give me a sense of "fattiness" and which melt extremely well on the tongue, almost without any pressure. Mmmmmm.

-Cutting a Roquefort is simple and complicated at the same time, on account of its texture. You need to have the right equipment so as not to break the cheese! Instead of a knife, make use of what we call a "lyre", a tool with a cutting wire in it, the sort which you get to tackle foie gras and which may just exist at the back of your kitchen drawer…

-That light bitterness of Penicillium roqueforti may go well with a sweet drink. Traditionally Roquefort has been associated with Sauternes. And people who (like me, I admit!) have had the pleasure to taste the grands crus of Sauternes wine in the depth of the Sauternes cellars, know what a great delight that marriage is…

-However putting Roquefort together with a syrupy wine is perhaps … rather too heavy. So I suggest to you instead, to go for one of the Natural Sweet Wines (VDN) like Maury, Rivesaltes, Rasteau or White Port or Madeira.

In moderation, none the less!!

More infos on www.roquefort.fr

Raw milk cheese in France

On a daily basis, I find people talking to me about cheese made from unpasteurised milk and the fact that it is absolutely essential to maintain the French cheese making tradition in the face of European hygiene constraints.

Well let me restate the truth about this: there are numerous cheeses still being made in France with raw milk.

And it is true that the two best selling AOP cheeses in France – Comté and Roquefort - are made with raw milk.

In other words, our total of 170,000 tonnes of such cheeses per year represents 14% of the global production of 1,230,000 tonnes.

There are satisfying statistics about all this to be found on the website of the French Ministry of Agriculture.

And the trends between 1997 and 2007 are clear too. No question about it!

Growth in total cheese production in France: +13% - Growth in raw milk cheese production: -12%

3 regions produce 80% of raw milk cheese: Franche Comté, Rhône Alpes, and Midi Pyrénées. The first and the third are obvious (they do Comté and Roquefort). And they are on the increase. But how about Savoie cheeses? Surprisingly they have been going down these past 10 years. What's happening there then? Relax, Reblochon, Abondance and Beaufort cheeses are still around and are still made with raw milk!

My local pride makes me pleased that my own region – Lorraine – is in 4th place when it comes to the manufacture of cheese and of raw milk cheese in particular. Volume is going up (+14%) but it is still modest: hardly even 5% of French cheeses from "chez moi" contain raw milk (thanks to Brie de Meaux!)

Watch this space!

And thanks to Lilian whose blog (agroalimentaire) drew my attention to these statistics.

Introducing Brocciu PDO – a Corsican cheese

SOME FACTS:

AOC (PDO) since 1983

Region: Corsica

Milk : Whey from Goats and/or Sheep + full cream milk at 25% level

Dimensions :  "Sawn off " conical shape

250g cheeses between 90 and 110 mm tall, lower diameter between 75 and 85 mm and upper 65mm    

Weight  : Cheeses of 250g, 500g, 1kg or 3kg

Maturing : Frescu (Fresh) or Passu (21 days minimum)

Annual production :550 tons – 66 farmers – 18 cheese makers

 

A little history

In the mountains of Corsica, like elsewhere, there were always one or two pigs which people fed on whey left over from the production of cheese, but rarely more than a couple. So what to do with the whey left over? It is full of good things – including proteins! So the shepherds very quickly got into the habit of reheating it, then often adding acidic yeast to coagulate the albumin and proteins.

Steeped in the culture of raising livestock and making cheese – it is said this recipe was first given to Corsican shepherds by King Solomon himself – Brocciu cheese, spoken about for ages in their oral tradition, only found its way into print at the end of the 19th century. "If you've never tasted it, you don't know Corsica", wrote Bergerat, the author of a book on hunting the mouflon in Corsica in 1891.

Brocciu used to be made mostly between November and June during the milking season for sheep and goats in Corsica (traditionally their kids are born in November in Corsica).

 

How Brocciu is made

Following the production of another cheese from sheep or goat milk, the whey is warmed again at low temperature (40°) "directly over a flame". 20-25% of full cream milk is then added (usually ewe's milk, goat less and less), salt, while it remains heated up to 80° and is regularly stirred.

They say that Brocciu "happens" when a milk mass is formed little by little on the surface. It is then gathered up by the cheese maker who then places it carefully with several moves of his skimmer into conically shaped moulds (called canestri or casgiaghje or fatoghje). Once cold, it is ready to be tasted only a few hours after its production. (Brocciu frescu)

 

Did you know?...

+ The ewes are from Corsican or Sardinian breeds – and the goats just from Corsica

+ It is very often sold freshly made, in wicker baskets

 

How to choose, cut, taste

+ You can test the freshness of a Brocciu by lightly shaking the cheese: a fresh Brocciu ought to "undulate"

+ Whether you like it sweet or savoury … no problem! Brocciu is to be found as an ingredient in a good number of Corsican recipes and is perfectly delicious together with jam, herbs, sugar, salt or vegetables.

+ My favourite recipe? Just simply with chutneys, olive oil, a little thyme and pepper, all together with a toasted slice of farmhouse bread.

  For more info, go to www.aoc-brocciu.com

Ossau Iraty PDO : from the Béarn and the Basque country

A cheese (from a ewe of the same name) which I know very well as I worked some 20 years ago to promote widely in France this cheese produced in Mauléon- Soule…

Here's its ID:

AOC (AOP) = PDO in the UK : since 6 March 1980

Origin : Béarn and Basque Country - Villages in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department, south of the Ousse, the Gave de Pau and the Adour + 3 communes in the Hautes-Pyrénées department.

Milk : Ewe, full cream milk, must be raw in farmhouse cheeses

Type : Semi-hard cheeses

Fat : 50% minimum on total weight (58% on dry matter)

Minimum affinage : 60 days for small size / 90 days for large

Dimensions : Standard: 26cm diameter x 9 -12cm high / Farmhouse: 24 -28cm diameter x 9 -15cm high / Small: 18 -20 cm diameter x 7 - 10cm high

Weight     : Large: 4 -5 kg / Small: 2 -3 kg

Rind: orangey-yellow to grey        

Cheese: white, soft, mild on the palate. Dry and crumbly if matured for some time

Particularities: Milk taken from three breeds of local ewes, perfectly accustomed to a damp climate and mountainous terrain (russet headed Manech, black headed Manech, Basco-béarnaise)

3,300 tons produced in 2005

Over 1,700 milk producers, 130 farmhouse producers, 10 cheese makers, 12 maturers (affineurs)

A little history: Their name reflects the two areas where the animals are raised and moved to summer pastures and in which the cheese is made: the valley of Ossau in the Béarn and the beech forests of Iraty in the Basque country. Some evidence of ewe cheese production exists in the Pyrenees from Neolithic times, and it's not Pliny the Elder but the poet Martial, the Spanish disciple of Pliny the Younger, who talks about it around the 1st century AD, when he describes the market in Toulouse.

In the 14th century, ewe tomme cheeses are often mentioned in the payment of rent in kind. It's never been easy to bring the milk down every day to the cheese maker when one is a long way up from the village: so the Basque and Béarnais shepherds quickly got into the habit of turning them into cheese up in their huts (called cujalas or cayolars) and calling them "tommes de brebis" and "ardigasna".

How Ossau Iraty is made: There's nothing like following the itinerary of AOC Ossau Iraty cheese to discover any of the 70 different ancestral stages still gone through today: care of the ewes, milking, addition of rennet less than 40 hours after the most distant milking, then curdling, cutting, stirring, pressing, turning over, salting with dry salt or brine, maturing with regular brushing …

Did you know?

-    The defined production area goes from 0 to 3,000 meters above sea level

-    Milk and cheese production are both seasonal in order to protect the ewes' natural cycle. For 2-5 months no or little milking of the ewes takes place, mostly at the end of summer, the transhumance period for 2/3 of the flocks; so don't be surprised that the shepherds are not to be seen making cheese in September or October, it's not permitted!

Tasting tips:

Ossau-Iraty and soft Jurançon… French King Henri IV would have enjoyed some in his childhood! It goes marvellously well with black cherry jam. To which I personally like to add some thyme or some chilli pepper, so as not to find it too sweet. More recipes to de found on the Ossau Iraty website: www. ossau-iraty.fr

The 46th French cheese to gain its PDO? Well not quite!

At the recent SIRHA cheese event in Lyon they were celebrating the official recognition of Rigotte de Condrieu as the 45^th French AOC/PDO cheese. (AOC = PDO in UK – a Protected Denomination of Origin classification)

And one of my correspondents has just assured me that there was yet another one - Charolais: 100% goat – saying that one of her suppliers had told her about it.

Having looked into it, I find the process has begun and the National Committee for Denominations of the INAO has “worked on” the dossier provided by the makers of Charolais and issued the following statement after its last meeting on 8^th January 2009:

Based on the revised specifications, the National Committee voted to recognise Charolais as an AOC. It has also amended the single document.

The specifications will be ratified once the auditing and control planning has been approved by the Control Council.

Several years can pass with frequent negotiations between the Commission of Enquiry (made up of professionals from all over

France

) and the future AOC applicants, before full recognition is achieved.

Charolais cheese is getting there …but there is still some way to go

Rigotte de Condrieu – the 45th AOC cheese in France

The decree approving the Rigotte de Condrieu label of origin was published in the Journal Officiel on 15th January 2009, as the 45th cheese to be recognised as an AOC (PDO in the UK) in France.

 « Rigotte de Condrieu » is a soft cheese made with raw full cream goat’s milk, It is shaped by hand to guarantee a firm and even texture. After maturing for a minimum of 8 days, it is marketed in a small disc shape, 4.2 – 5cm across and 1.9 – 2.4 cm high.

Its surface flora consist of ivory, white or blue coloured mould. Its body is white to ivory in colour with a firm and smooth consistency. It contains at least 40g of fatty matter per 100g of cheese.

Rigotte de Condrieu is produced in the Massif du Pilat, situated to the South West of Lyon (the Parc Naturel du Pilat). The production of milk, its transformation into cheese and its maturing process can only be undertaken in 48 communes in this area.

Since the 19th century, this goat’s cheese has adopted the name of the commune of Condrieu which was one of its trading places : Rigotte de Condrieu.

Since that time, Rigotte de Condrieu has been clearly identified as a small-sized cheese, made with goat’s milk and benefitting from a regional reputation. This reputation persisted throughout the 20th century.

As with any product identified by its origin and quality, controls are undertaken  by independent organisations to guarantee the respect of its presentation and origin.

Facts and figures

60 tonnes produced in 2008, of which 35 tons farmhouse production

16 farmhouse producers

1 cheese production unit using milk from 13 milk producers.

 To know more :

www.inao.gouv.fr Rubrique « Produits »

You may have noticed in the above précis of the report from the INAO (the body concerned with PDOs in France), that they still refer to AOC and not AOP … this is because in France, we are only in the early stage of recognising the cheese in the run up to the dossier being validated in Brussels.

Rocamadour AOP (PDO): the little cheese that get’s on your goat!

Ever since I fell upon the Rocamadour AOP website, I have kept telling myself – “pay it a visit” or rather, go and listen to them there. It’s fun.

 Well here are a few facts about Rocamadour, a cheese I have been familiar with for many years… I even took part in a jury for this little cheese for at least two years… and of course if you are ever in the region, you just have to go and see the magnificent natural beauty spot of Rocamadour and discover all its churches and chapels built there centuries ago (Rocamadour is a world famous shrine of the Virgin Mary)

I remember also one rainy year when I went with Gruyère from the Swiss Alps to the Rocamadour festival with its farmhouse cheeses… If I recall correctly one Whit Sunday. And despite the rain there was such an ambiance … of enthusiasts … just magic!

A FEW FACTS:

An AOC (PDO) cheese since 1996

Region: Causses de Quercy > the Lot + a few towns or villages of the Aveyron, Corrèze, Dordogne, Tarn & Garonne departments

Size: a “disc” - 6cm across and 1.6 cm high – weight 35g

Annual production: 1100 tonnes – 38 farmers / 3 cheese producers / 1 maturer

A little history: Once called “cabécou de Rocamadour” which means in Occitan “little goat’s cheese”, Rocamadour was made by local women, guaranteeing them additional income, thanks to the number of visitors to the town of Rocamadour, a worldwide pilgrimage site of the Black Virgin, patron saint of shipwrecked sailors who had been saved – and a staging point on the pilgrim route to Santiago de Compostella.

The cheese was officially recognised in 1451 when the local lord, the Bishop of Evreux, established in writing the “dîme” (tithe) on cheeses.

The production of Rocamadour: It comes from Alpine and Saanen breed goats, or a crossbreeding of the two. Their raw full cream milk is matured before rennet is lightly added when warm, then coagulated slowly for at least 20 hours, then pre-drained for 24 hours;

The curds are then mixed, salted, shaped by hand and the maturing of the cheese is completed in a dryer for at least 6 days, during which a typical flora (geotrichum and yeast) develops on its rind.

 Did you know?

Each smallholding cannot have more than 10 goats per hectare of pasture, fodder or cereals for feeding the livestock: there’s no intensive farming in Rocamadour!

 Tips: selecting, cutting, tasting…

You can easily recognise a Rocamadour cheese by its hexagonal label with the word Rocamadour written on it (it’s obligatory)

 When choosing one, pay attention to the look of its rind – thin, natural, lightly brushed and velvety… and by the “undulations” in the cheese, whose texture is deliciously creamy and smooth! Well that’s how I like them. They are often sold in threes in a wooden container which allows the cheese to carry on maturing. So don’t hesitate to buy it right up to its “use by date” and you’ll have a feast … and your fingers will!

Dry or creamy, Rocamadour goes particularly well with eggs … and white wine (drink responsibly !)

Brie de Provins (registered trade mark)

One of my readers recently drew my attention to the revival of the production of Brie de Provins.

 

Basically I applaud this initiative regarding the production of this unpasteurised cheese, weighing a good 1.5 kilos. Beyond Meaux and Melun, many other towns in the Brie area are well-known for their particular cheeses: Nangis, Montereau, Coulommiers and Provins.

 

However I was surprised to read on the label shown on their website that the brand is a registered trade mark for a limited liability company of the same name.

 

And its producer has provided me with the following background information: contrary to popular belief, “Brie de Provins” is an original creation, dating back only to the beginning of the 80s.

 

Surprisingly, before this date, Brie de Provins did not exist as such. Nonetheless like many towns in the Brie area, Provins was renowned for its market in which cheeses from the surrounding farms were sold. But not as Brie de Provins! This was the sole creation of Monsieur Weissberger, with the help of a local cheese maker and the blessing of Alain Peyrefitte ex-French Minister from 1962 to 1981), who was mayor of Provins at the time.

 

Created in 1979, its official launch date was in July 1982

 

The production of this cheese made from unpasteurised milk and weighing a good kilo and a half has thus continued for over a quarter of a century now… and they are working on a website:

www.briedeprovins.com

 

Worth a follow up…

Which cheeses have the most calcium?

Just listening to rheumatologists, gynaecologists and GPs talking about this question has made me fully conversant with the different treatments of osteoporosis - and the role played by the calcium + vitamin D combination in this battle…

1) Medicines are on no use if patients don’t take them – do you know that in France, one patient in every 5 does not go to get the medicines prescribed by their doctor? (But in the short term that’s good news for the national health budget here…)

2) The problem with osteoporosis is that it’s a hidden complaint: you don’t feel ill… and it does not affect your quality of life until …the first fracture.

3) Two factors in its reappearance: an insufficient intake of calcium + vitamin D (in the diet or prescribed as an additive) and an incomplete respect for the basic anti-osteoporosis treatment (getting tired of taking the medicine –as it does not seem to be working to improve your health).

And cheese in all this?

Yes of course, cheese is an important source of calcium. But not just for that reason (*) Lastly, certain cheeses do it better than others…

For instance, in 30 grams of Emmental you get 350 mg of calcium – but in the same quantity of Camembert, it’s only 140mg.

Well, how come? Generally speaking, big cheeses, whether hard (like Emmental, Beaufort, Comté or Gruyère), extra-hard (Parmiggiano, Regiano, Sbrinz, Grana Padano) or even semi-hard (Cantal, Salers, Laguiole), in fact almost all big cheeses have about the same high level of calcium.

 

And what do we see? That these are cheeses where rennet plays an important role, more important than its starter cultures. To go from there to claim that the rennet encapsulates the calcium to form a sort of backbone for the cheese and to cause this cheese to become heavy is an easy conclusion to draw.  I buy into it without a problem, knowing that we are not talking about a scientific debate (I’m no technician!) but that it’s just an imaginative way of talking about what happens…

If your bone density is a little deficient, go for the big cheeses rather than the little ones! Apart perhaps from Cantal or Cheddar type cheeses, where you may have noticed a rather high salt level, due to the introduction of fine salt when the cheese is formed  … taste them …well… for their taste and their pleasurable truly unique texture…

 (*): you’d realise this if the cheese was simply a lump of calcium!! There are plenty of other ingredients substantially more important in volume than calcium in a cheese.

Let’s take Emmental:

37% water

29% protein (casein)

29% lipids (yes, fatty matter…)

But only traces of carbohydrates: and no (or very little) sugars in cheese! All that has been removed with the whey or lactoserum…

0.3% salt (sodium chloride, an element added to preserve the cheese)

Vitamins A and B9 (among others)

31mg of cholesterol – 2.7g of mono-saturated fatty acids … 

So we’re not all made alike – As for me for instance, I’m someone who has eaten 1 to 2 kilos of cheese every week for the past 20 years, my last fat level check up in September was normal …a fact that will anger some of you, I am sure.

And above all, don’t forget that over 600 aromatic molecules have been identified in cheese!

All about Neufchâtel

One of my faithful readers, Ludovic, based in the UK complained that I never talk about Neufchâtel cheese. So to give him pleasure, here’s a rundown on this attractive Normandy cheese  (no need to call it “good cheese” – that goes without saying, don’t you think?)

 

You can get full information on the Neufchâtel website, or that for French PDO :

AOC since                1969 then 1977

Origin                     Pays du Bray area in Seine-Maritime department

Presentation            6 different shapes: Bonde (plug shape), double bonde, small brick, square, heart and double heart

Weight                       100g / 200g / 600g

Maturing period       - young: 10 days - semi mature: 3 weeks - mature: from 1-3 months depending on size

Annual Production :  1,600 tonnes, 23 farms / 4 artisanal production units

 

A little history..

Have you ever been to the Bray area in North-West France? It’s a narrow plain, well sheltered from winds coming from the sea and inland, set deeply down in the cliffs … an attractive Normandy landscape, with its pattern of small fields enclosed by hedges planted on mounds, protecting them from the wind and a habitat for birds…

The origins of Neufchâtel cheese go back to the 11^th century: in 1035 then Abbey of Sigy was given the right to levy the “dime des frometons”, a tax to be paid by the peasants of the valley of Bray engaged in the trade of their cheese and their reputation never stopped growing! These “frometons” were also called at the time “bondons” or “angelots” …

It is said that the heart shape was much used by the girls in that part of the world, keen on fraternising with the English invaders during the Hundred Year Wars (i.e. in the 14th century). But one has to wait until the 16th century before the name Neufchâtel was being used in the accounts of the Abbey of St Amand in Rouen.

A rare fact that is worth repeating is that when in the 19^th century production had become more established, a farmer called Isodore Lefebvre had the idea of collecting from his neighbours milk that had already been transformed to pour into moulds on his farm and let mature in his cellar at Nesle Hodeng: thus the profession covering cattle grazing, milk production and cheese maturing all together was born!

 

The production of Neufchâtel

Neufchâtel is a very special soft cheese:

In contrast to other cheeses from its area, the curdling process is lactic: very little rennet and a lot of starter cultures are added at the same time and the process is very slow, taking from 24 to 36 hours!

The curds are then drained – this can last a good twelve hours. Several techniques are used to separate the cheese from the whey. The curds can for example be poured into hanging bags..

The cheese is then covered and pressed by weights placed on top for 6-12 hours.

Another thing peculiar to Neufchâtel. The inclusion of penicillium (blue mould) can be undertaken into the milk and/or at the time of mixing: cheese heavy in mould is also added to incorporate penicillium into the mix (they call this “vaccinating” the cheese).

 

Then the cheese is mixed for several minutes to give it an even consistency, make it easier to shape, less crumbly, then it is put into a mould - which is also called a “gaille” - in the desired shape (6 shapes are permitted). Small producers tend to do this by hand: others use shapes identical to those used by bakers.

 

Quite often, salting is done with dry salt, into the heart of the curds, like with Cantal… which enhances the development of penicillium… but can also lead to a stronger salty taste.

Finally comes the drying room phase, in very damp cellars which make the cheese begin to dry out and develop “penicillium” and then in a “sécherie” for further drying of those intended to be more mature.

Did you know?

 -       30% of the cheese is produced on the farm and 80% of Neufchâtel is made with raw milk.

 

My advice: choose, keep, cut, taste…

 -       The rind is mouldy – white or golden/ivory coloured for the oldest cheeses. The cheese itself is cream coloured with a firm heart at the beginning through to very soft for the oldest.

 

As for me, I’ve had the opportunity to sample Neufchatel cheeses often sold in the market in Rouen and I like this cheese best when it is very mature, with a rind just turning yellow, lightly covered in cracks, and there’s the possibility of softening the taste with some butter (from Normandy of course).

 

        - Try the sweet and sour test by accompanying a very sweet cider with a youngish Neufchâtel.

 -       Or why not a sweet white wine, like a Côtes de Bergerac or a Coteaux du Layon?

 However with a “double heart” cheese …one so mature it has in fact lost its heart, a fairly heavy red wine is necessary to challenge the strength of the cheese.

I recall a first rate tasting session of a big hearted cheese together with a Cahors wine … a real feast, but as always in great moderation!

 

- And never forget that Neufchâtel is the basic ingredient of a sauce that goes marvellously well with both meat and fish. Simple to make: take the juices from a meat or fish dish, some Normandy cream and a Neufchâtel without its rind.

Charolais cheese (sometimes spelt Charollais or Charolles)

Coming from the granite hills of the Charolais region in Burgundy, this cheese is made from goat’s milk or a mix goat+cow.

 

One must say that Charolais cows are better known for their meat than for their dairy uses! And also this region is not too far from the heartland of a great AOC goat cheese: Mâconnais. The men folk looked after the cattle while the women owned a few goats from which they made cheese (more details in French on the la-chevre.com website and an interesting article on how this cheese got its AOC credentials).

 

Charolais is a generous cheese: about 250-280g and some 8cm high and 6 cm wide. Once matured (a slow acidification for one day), rennet is added to the milk and left to curdle again for 24 hours.

 

Formed with a ladle, each cheese is turned and salted the following day with dry salt.

Then matured for at least 3-4 weeks, if it is not in fact sold very fresh, as I have seen recently.

 

You can clearly recognise Charolais by its very fine texture.

And the nec plus ultra is without doubt the sort that is made just from goat’s milk, a variety for which steps were taken a few years ago to gain recognition as an AOC.

 

Last week I sampled a mixed milk cheese… badly mixed! One could see in the middle of the cheese a white vein characteristic of goat’s milk … therefore at best 10% goat and 90% cow, and so I quickly understood why it was very much cheaper than a 100% goat cheese…

 

The rare websites which talk about this cheese (in French) belong to producers (farmers mostly):

Examples are Domaine de Saulnieres and Fromagerie Girard

Farmhouse Gaperon

Head for the plain of la Limagne with its black sticky soil. To be more precise go to the place called “Montgacon” in the commune of Maringues to the NE of Clermont Ferrand … a little town known for its tanneries… and its tobacco.

 

The farm is easy to find: head for the butte (hillock) of Montgacon (originally Montgascon) …it’s almost at the top! A welcoming farm… it belongs to the “Welcome to the Farm” group.

 

That day it was dull, but the cows of Patricia RIBIER and Thierry OLLIER were there to greet us. A surprise: they are for the most part Brunes des Alpes cows. For one good reason: this rustic cattle is used to the rather harsh climatic conditions of the region and especially they are excellent milking cows, with high cheese producing potential. Our host did explain to us his difficulty in finding heifers of this breed. He had to go to Austria recently to buy some, but this would be clearly  beneficial for crossing these with French stock.

 

NB: No ensilage for this herd. Just fresh dry grass.

 

Patricia RIBIER makes Gaperon cheese as did her mother, grandmother and indeed her great grandmother before her… and it is to be sincerely hoped that her 8 year old daughter will do the same in a few years, despite the difficulties of this noble craft.

 

Gaperon, a typical cheese of this region, the ancestor of all soft cheeses with garlic and pepper, got its name the word “gape”, meaning buttermilk in the local patois. Because at one time, this cheese was made with the liquid which seeped out of butter. Today Patricia, like all the other makers of Gaperon, uses milk instead.

 

This she leaves to curdle slowly for a day, then mixes it with garlic, pepper and salt before draining it in hanging cloths. Patricia is one of the only people who continues to shape the cheeses by hand and to drain them in linen sheet: the big dome-like shape of her Gaperon is not made by machine. And it’s a generous size (about 450g).

 

Gaperon cheese is ready to eat very quickly: it is after all a fresh cheese!

 

But here are some photos at different stages of maturing:

-       very fresh on the day

-       after 2 weeks, its natural yellow rind (and it’s not penicillium mould, like you sometimes find) begins to crumble, proteolysis has clearly started (the cheese is runny)

-       after one month it gets dry , its rind tends towards grey/black

-       after 6 months (for true cheese lovers only!)… the rind is totally black, attacked by mites, those tiny cheese acaridans…

 

 

And here we have a cheese matured in the care of Olivier Nivesse, a famous cheese maker in Clermont…

Gaperon does not have much of an aroma (I can confirm this, as none of my fellow passengers in the train compartment were troubled by it), and to continue letting it mature, you can simply leave it in a sealed container in a kitchen cabinet… I’ve not tried it but that’s what Patricia told us.

 

You’ll find her in different street markets, peeling a whole garlic, as she will never buy it already cut (don’t ever talk to her about cut quick frozen garlic…)

 

Where then do you find this magnificent huge Gaperon?

-       From Nivesse of course (in the St Pierre market in Clermont)

-       On the farm

-       But also in Paris and elsewhere as they send several containers every week to the Rungis market.

 

So keep your eyes open and look for the name “Le Maringuois” on the label. I guarantee you’ll really enjoy it

The healthiest drink…

According to Pasteur, it was wine in his days…

And I must, alas, confirm his reasoning, after suffering an upset from the tap water in the place where I was last week, thanks to a dose of enterococcus, E coli and other faecal nasties.

 

It won’t change my lifestyle as water features hardly at all in my life, except for my morning tea or for cooking vegetables.

 

But it’s really tough on old folks… although there does exist a remedy, once renowned among the military in the colonies: to get rid of diarrhoea, drink two glasses of neat pastis. But seriously, only a proper antibiotic is really quickly effective.

 

All of which made me think of a programme I listened to some weeks ago about the effect of the consumption of cheese generally and of cheese made with raw milk, in particular, in the course of a treatment with antibiotics. The latter proves to be an interesting combination as it allows you to recuperate more quickly your intestinal flora…

 

A radio programme currently available on line in French supports this view:

 

Raw milk cheeses : friends or enemies of our health? By Xavier Bertrand, a microbiologist and Dominique Angèle Vuitton, an immunologist.

A  “ usual suspect” in cases of listeriosis, and so a product to be avoided by pregnant women, cheeses made with raw milk don’t enjoy a good reputation. However most recent studies in hand indicate that the lactic ferments found in them do help in reconstituting intestinal flora after antibiotic treatment: even better, they work against certain allergies. While still sometimes called a “risk” for health, raw milk has now become “positive for our organism”!

Finger testing a camembert

I’ve just found an amusing but nonetheless instructive article focussing on the gesture we all make before buying a camembert: pressing in our thumb to test the elasticity of the cheese.

 

Extracts of an analysis undertaken by Bertil Sylvander, an economist and sociologist, can be read on the agrobiosciences.org website (in French only). The general conclusion: is the thumbprint which our grandmothers pressed into their camemberts - made with raw milk and un-separated curds and shaped with a ladle really of any use in judging today’s camemberts, made as they are with pasteurised milk?...

 

 

A new website on AOP (in French) - PDO (in English :Protected Denomination of Origin) for cheese

Remember this address to find out everything (almost!) about French and European cheese:

www.fromages-aop.com

The site is in French but for information of which cheeses qualify for the AOP symbol, click on “les AOP laitières européennes” and choose a country.

 

And don’t forget to visit also the www.masoirée-fromagesaop.com for cheesy evenings (AOP, it goes without saying!)

 

Things to discover in Quebec

Some time ago I wrote a note about “cafés de pays” (regional cafés). Now a lady from Quebec has commented to me that the concept of “fromages de pays” (regional cheeses) exists across the Atlantic.

As I cannot really get across there this summer, here is a virtual visit to the world of cheese in Canada's  "belle province"

We must begin with a visit to the Fromages de Pays website – it will come up in French but look for the magic word “English” and click on it for a full translation. It lays emphasis on the use of “whole milk”. So much the better as the taste comes from the strength of its fatty matter…

Another interesting site is called Fromages d’ici. – again with an English version and a clever personality quiz!! This comes from the Quebec milk producers.

Then you shouldn’t resist going on to the Société des Fromages du Québec site – their English language version talks of “a passion for excellence and creativity” and provides a different perspective on the cheeses of this region … quite a photo this one, isn’t it?

Finally there is la Route des Fromages du Québec site and that of the Canadian milk producers : plaisirslaitiers.ca (dairygoodness.ca) which explains the development of cheese technology in Canada… even mentioning the creation in 1893 of a “cheese elephant”, weighing more that six tons for the Universal Exhibition in Chicago! 10,000 cows were involved in the production of this monster, two metres high and 10 metres in diameter… and which caused the floor on which it was mounted to collapse! This record was beaten in 1995 by a Cheddar weighing over 26 tons… I cannot imagine just how many months (or years?) were required for it to mature properly or be edible!

There are more than 300 different cheeses in  Canada and there are many producers who regularly launch into this adventure of turning a liquid into a solid.

500m tons of cheese are consumed each year by Canadians (10kg per person per year), mainly in Ontario and  Quebec.

Quebec produces 45% cheddar and 56% of “speciality” cheeses … not unexpected when you think of its French heritage.

PDO Morbier

If there’s a cheese which on certain occasions is my own “madeleine" (Marcel Proust’s famous “memory jogger”), it’s a Morbier. Perhaps this is because of the geographical proximity between the Franche-Comté area and my native Lorraine enhanced by the fact that several members of my family have lived that way, Or is it because I remember ski de fond outings near Mouthe, La Chapelle des Bois or Le Col de la Faucille?

In any case Morbier is a cheese we very often served at home.

It was only awarded an AOC/PDO in December 2000 … quite recently! Before then, its name was virtually generic and you found morbier (without a capital M) as a common name, produced all over France including the Loire area.

Today there are 7000 tons produced by 26 cooperatives, 13 cheese artisans, 2 farmhouse producers… and almost 1000 milk producers throughout the Doubs and Jura departments and certain neighbouring communes in the Ain and the Saône et Loire departments and they have to use unpasteurised milk… which was not the case at one time…

You can pick out a Morbier by its particular “character”, so say the professionals involved… i.e. its continuous black line which runs right through it. 

A little history:
1795: the mayor of Morbier spoke of the production of “fat cheeses”, 8 to 10 kilos in weight called “petits morbiers”

1799: at la Chapelle des Bois on Mont Risoux, cheeses like gruyeres were being made but they resulted in a fattier consistency and with some veins…”

But it is probable that over 250 years ago, on the farms and dairies of the Doubs and the Jura, they were making this distinctive “cinder-lined” cheese…

The climate can be tough in the Jura! In a region where it is normal to pool the milk together to produce big rounds of hard cheese to be eaten in the following winter, there were times when the cattle rearers could not get their milk down to the dairies in the valley.

So they had the idea of making smaller cheeses up there – above all since the cows did not give much milk at that time – by using the milk from the morning’s milking together with that of the evening to produce one cheese, and without lighting a fire under the milk cauldron : the morning milk was curded and pressed, then the cheese maker gathered cinders from the hearths in the farm to “protect” these curd until the evening cheese making. Protecting them from insects and flies, you can be sure! 

Thus Morbier with its famous cinder line was born.

Morbier is pressed twice: a pre-pressing when it is taken out of the cauldron, then the curds are cut in two, the first half is covered with cinders before the second half is placed on top, then the whole piece is pressed again.

How to choose? Personally I look at the colour of the cheese itself (it looks creamier when made when the cows are to grass, and that is immediately to be seen: the cheese is ivory in colour)… and you can see many little holes on one side and the other of that cindery line!

Did you know this?
Creamy and melting in the mouth: just like its second cousin, the Vacherin from Fribourg (it really is the same family of semi-hard cheeses, nice and “fat”)

 Morbier is used in particular in cooking, for making sauces. And by adding it in equal quantities with Comté cheese, you can make an extremely soft fondue… I very often use it in the evening for an enjoyable variation on raclette, in combination with a farmhouse St Nectaire, an unpasteurised Raclette or one that’s smoked or with mustard… or with a Bleu de Gex cheese or a blue Vercors, the only two blues which when melting do not grease too much the fondue dish.

 For more info, you can check out the Morbier site at www.fromage-morbier.com

NB: Morbier goes equally well with a red or a white wine, like the majority of semi-hard cheeses… According to your taste, and taking care as usual not to mask the one with the other, and in moderation!!

 

Goat cheese contest in Sainte Maure

Sainte Maure de Touraine in the Loire region had its weekend festival at the beginning of June… and I went there for the first time this year as my friends from the Commandership of Cheese of Sainte Maure asked me to participate in its jury at their annual goat cheese contest.

However it was not just about products from Sainte Maure but also all the PDO cheeses in the region: crottins de Chavignol, Puligny-St-Pierre, Selles sur Cher

 
There was a great ambience there and I heartily congratulate the organisers for having involved for several years children in this competition: several tables were reserved for those who were novices to whom the professionals explained what is involved in a tasting session, but above all each jury had one young person among its number. On my table was Maximilien, aged 16, who had spent 5 years being trained before being allowed to join the adults!

But this year the cow and the ewe were also made welcome at Sainte Maure because for this 2008 session, it was the Basque country which were the special guests with their ewe and cow tommes, their pimentos from Espelette, their Basque cakes… their axoa, their bandas… Quite an ambiance under an almost summery sun!

Normandy Camembert AOC – Official confirmation of raw milk

The INAO (French national institute concerned with origin and quality) has recently approved an amendment to the rules governing the production of Normandy Camembert cheese as proposed by its professionals.

This involved an intensification of the specific production zone by

-reducing its area by a half

- increasing the degree of Normandy origin of the livestock (a higher percentage of Norman breed cows in herds)

-Six months minimum spent in pasture + the rest of the year on hay

And especially

-raw milk obligatory

-cheese formed in moulds  in 5 moves with a ladle of unseparated curd

-packaging in wood

I applaud the “raw milk” requirement making yet again strongly the point that “raw milk” is not a question of taste (it is the starter cultures added in the production process which give rise to aromas in milk which is too sterile…) but rather that I eat cheese made with raw milk to continue immunising myself by maintaining my natural defences against nasty bacteria etc… that come from nature and proliferate inside my fridge…

Even more calcium in milk products?

You’ve seen them sitting happily on the shelves in Francethese calcium enriched yoghourts, white cheeses and milks. These “super heroes in the fight against osteoporosis” (that’s not my definition, it comes from Fabiola Flex, a journalist and author of the book “N’avalons pas n’importe quoi” -“Let’s not swallow any old thing”- published in French by Laffont) provide even more calcium and vitamin D to help those 3 million nutritionally deficient French women, who suffer from osteoporosis, to fight against this insidious illness…

Vitamin D is important: it regulates the calcium level by improving the intestinal absorption of this mineral while at the same time minimising its elimination via urine.

All very well!
But let’s not forget that the sun provides us with 80-90% of our needs in vitamin D.

And have a good look at the composition of different such products which state their calcium level on their packaging. Do those which do not make any mention of it, in fact give you any more calcium?

Like for instance good old Emmental with its 325mg in 30g portions?
Or Comté cheese and its 294mg?

Brocciu or brousse or serac?

Summer is icumen in … gently... Red fruits are in strong competition for our attention with cheese at this time of year in France ! So now’s the time to opt for fresh cheese cheese and tuck in.

What sort can you have?

- Feta (a PDO from Greece if you’ve forgotten!)
- Mozzarella (for example Buffala Campina AOC, check my note on this one)
- Ricotta or
- Brousse (from Provence), Séré or Sérac (from Switzerland) or Broussette or Greuilh (Pyrenees)  or there’s Brocciu PDO ( Corsica)…

 Traditionally in high mountain pastures or summer meadows, there were perhaps one or two pigs to feed but rarely more. So how to make use of the whey that’s left over? There’s too much goodness still in it. Cheese makers have habitually reheated it (up to 80°-90°) then added an acid ferment to coagulate the albumen and the proteins remaining in this liquid left over from cheese production.
It’s then drained off, sometimes through a cloth…in certain mountain meadows, it’s not unusual to see socks hung out full of curds – but more often they’re in proper cheese strainers, I must say!

Thus we’re talking about a low-fat cheese – with no fatty matter, made with whey from the milk of cows, goats or ewes.

What’s so special about Brocciu corse (Corsican Brocciu), an PDO since 1998? They add to the whey 25-35% of raw full cream milk from goats or ewes. This contains therefore a minimum of 40% fatty matter after drying. So this cheese can be eaten fresh or matured for several weeks and in this case the cheese is called “passu”.

 

All these cheeses are great, accompanied by fruit preserves, herbs, sugar, salt… and vegetables.

My favourite recipe?  Serve it simply with tomato conserve, olive oil, a little thyme and pepper, all accompanied by toasted farmhouse bread.

Touch it and it stings

The motto of the town of Nancy is Non inultus premor –meaning roughly translated: “nobody touch it” or “touch it and it stings” (I found the coat of arms on Wikipedia). This is an allusion to the defeat and death of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy at the Battle of Nancy In 1477…

It is in fact an “onopordon”  with acanthus leaves from the Asteraceae family in which you find the wild artichoke (cynara cardunculus or cynara humilis, used even today in the recipe for Spanish Torta dal Casar) the dandelion …or the edelweiss!

 The thistle is known for its vegetable rennet, in other words for curdling milk.
So what do you do with it?

In fact it’s when its milky liquid comes in contact with the thistle flowers that it jellifies. On the Medinaportalwebsite, I found the following recipe: First pick the thistle flowers, dry them at ambient temperature and store them. To use them, soak them in water over one night and then press them (in a mortar) in order to obtain the desired enzyme. Then filter this infusion and add milk.

For a number of years these vegetable “rennets” have gained in popularity – in fact coagulating enzymes from artichokes or thistles, principally from Mediterranean countries.

Hence you get the Torta dal Casar, a Spanish PDO and also the Torta de la Serena – another Spanish PDO or even the Portuguese PDO Serpa – all made with this sort of rennet.

Some say that it gives a slight bitterness to the cheese…but I did not find this at all when tasting the Torta dal Casar shown in this photo…

“Mitey” good Tomme cheese

Mites or acarids – or in French, artisons or cirons, these are the cheese maturer’s best friends. In the Haute Savoie department they go by the name of cérons. All of which to say, that here’s a cheese from Schmidhauser in that part of France, which I like a lot. Firstly for its label, with that magnificent bell in its edelweiss sculptured holder.

 

Also – above all – for the cheese itself, of course!! A tomme made from raw full milk, matured 3 months, with very mature aromas…

Which leads me to introduce quickly to you, one of the last Savoie cheesemakers, 45 years in the business, known particularly for his use of the cellars of the Château of Annecy to mature his tommes.

Do I need to inform you that the Schmidhauser family are Swiss??
So you will find among his range, a cheese produced in Switzerland and matured in Haute-Savoie in France – the “cousin”.
There’s no need to visit Alex (a new cheesy website), or go to Annecy itself to sample the Schmidhauser range (tomme de Savoie, farmhouse tomme, goat cheese, Abondance PDO and raclette de Savoie…) Just look out carefully for those labels proudly bearing that Franco-Swiss bell!

Logo for PDO French cheese denomination

It was a request from the entire French PDO cheese profession, communicated to the French Minister of Agriculture last October following the AGM of the National Council for the Denomination of French Milk Products (CNAOL): European legislation now requires the European AOP logo to be present on packaging as from May 2009. However all French PDO decrees have been carrying a phrase such as “the display of he logo with the INAO symbol, the wording “Appellation d’origine controlee” and the name xxx are all required by law on the packaging of cheeses benefitting from the protected origin xxx”.

Therefore, legally speaking, there ought to have been two such logos on a pack… easy for a large cheese, more delicate for a small one!

Therefore the Minister has kept his word and the issue has been handled efficiently: you’ll have to get used to not having this rather old-fashioned AOC logo and settle for the European AOP sign. It was published in the French Journal Officiel of 17/04/08.

So far, so good... but this logo is very similar to another quality symbol applying much less rigid geographical conditions : the PGI (Protected Geographical Indication). So I support those who are pushing for a clearer difference between the two logos? A different backround colour, perhaps ? Wait and see.

Another worthwhile English cheese…

Strong yet it melts in your mouth…it’s Somerset Reserve Extra Mature Cheddar – “handmade on the farm” and bearing the quality label of authentic West Country farmhouse cheese. It was brought back by neighbours who know my enthusiasm in discovering new tasty cheeses. Check them out on www.farmhousecheesemakers.com .