[cheese] Tome de Brebis

I like cheese.  I like cheese a lot.  In fact, I love cheese.  I worship at the shrine of Aristaeus.

Aristaeus earlier.  He chose to make no comment.

He was the god of shepherds, cheese-making and other fine things such as bee-keeping, honey, olives, herbs and the cooling Etesian winds of summer.  He was one of the rustic gods or “Theoi Nomioi” who were the gods of the countryside, the fields and forests. If I were to have a god then Aristaeus would be my god of choice.

I eat a lot of cheese and I’m lucky enough to live with some excellent cheese shops  nearby.  I spend most of my cheese money in Fromagerie d’Aligre, at 15 Rue Aligre in the 12^th.

This is a cheese I got this weekend.  Look at its beautiful, white paste and marvel at its unusual yellow tinged crust.  It’s a Tome de Brebis from the Auvergne.  It’s a semi-soft sheep’s milk cheese and it’s got that wonderful, sharp and salty taste from relatively young sheep’s cheeses.  The yellow tinge in the crust comes from the bacteria in the caves where it is matured.

It’s apparently best with a light red wine, perhaps a Brouilly or something, or just feast on it with whatever you’ve got to hand, unless all you’ve got to hand is something inappropriate like a big, thick chocolate milkshake.