Today’s Cheese is Bleu de Laqueuille

Another day, another cheese.  And another blue cheese.

This one is an industrial, pasteurised cheese from the Auvergne although it wasn’t always this way.  This is what comes from mass production.  You get standardised cheeses that really don’t reflect the place where the cheese was made or the season when it was made.  This cheese could probably be made from cows milk from anywhere and it would be quite likely pretty much the same.  Is that a bad thing?  Well, yes and no.  You lose a fair amount of the authenticity of the cheese but the dairy farmers who are not cheesemakers have a market for their milk and we have a decent cheese in return that will be pretty much the same every time you buy it.  And that reliability is something that some people prefer over authenticity.

This cheese was formally a traditionally made cheese and there is, apparently, an unpasteurised fermier version still available.  The cheese was invented [in as much as you can invent a cheese] by a cheesemaker called Antoine Roussel in the mid 1800s who combined the moulds from his rye bread with his cheese and voila.  Antoine is also credited with inventing the more popular and more common Bleu d’Auvergne but I suspect that the Bleu d’Auvergne simply evolved from the wider application of Antoine’s discoveries.  Antoine’s innovations were based on recreating the naturally occuring moulds that caused his caved aged cheeses to develop mould and then to also “needle” or pierce his cheeses to enable oxygen to penetrate the cheese and cause allow the moulds to flourish.

The use of the mould to create blue cheeses was already well known and the legendary and ancient Roquefort is a cheese that is made to the south of the Auvergne.  What Antoine wanted to do was make the production of his cows’ milk blues more reliable.  He experimented with different moulds [the container used to give form as opposed to the fungus this time] and then hit upon using bread moulds and knitting needles to standardise the production of his cheeses.  This was the time of the industrial revolution and Antoine was perhaps very much a man of his times with regard to these ideas of management, control and regularisation.

These discoveries soon spread in the region and you have two very similar cheeses.  The Bleu d’Auvergne has received its Appellation d’Origine Protégée [AOP] whilst the Bleu de Laqueuille is unprotected and perhaps this has impacted on its success.  The AOP does seek to protect products that have a history, are strongly linked to an area of production and to a specific knowledge regarding the making of the cheese but, for me, as soon as you pasteurise the cheese you do lose some of the effects of geography and terroir.

But these two cheeses are very similar and if you were faced with a choice, you might be more likely to buy the AOP cheese.  The Laqueuille is also a slightly milder cheese than the Auvergne.

This is an unpressed, uncooked, pasteurised cows milk cheese that has been matured for at least six weeks and probably a little longer.  The rind is pale grey and brown with some white bloom, dry with sticky patches and quite edible.  The paste is creamy and ivory coloured with the pockets of blue, these varying from the size of a grain of rice to pockets the size of a nib [is that what they are called or have I just made that up?] of sweetcorn.  The paste is soft, creamy and occasionally slightly crumbly.  It is well salted but it lacks the bite of a Bleu d’Auvergne or the hefty bite of a Roquefort [unsurprising since the Roquefort is a sheep’s milk cheese].  There is a slight bite there though and this nicely cuts through the creaminess.

This cheese would be quite happy on a cheese board, perhaps served with something a little sweet such as fruit chutney but would also go well in a salad too.  You can try it with pears as you might a Roquefort but the contrast between the saltiness and sweetness will be lost.  A red wine might overpower it, unless you have a light red but a white or a fine sherry will probably be better suited.

Today’s Cheese is Bleu de Chèvre

This is a cheese so authentic that it doesn’t have a fancy name.  Just Bleu de Chèvre, or Blue Goat’s Cheese for a direct translation.  It is made in Boissy-Saint-Léger, a commune to the south east of Paris and, to add to its rarity, it’s a fermier cheese made from the milk from the goats on a single farm.

Now what’s interesting for me is that you don’t get many blue goat’s milk cheeses and there certainly aren’t any famous ones.  There are plenty of well known blue sheep’s milk cheeses, including the mighty Roquefort and loads of famous blue cow’s milk cheeses such as Dorset Blue Vinney, Stilton and Gorgonzola but there are no celebrated goats milk blues.  Off the top of my head I know of Harbourne in the UK, and at a push you might say the Picon from Spain qualifies but that’s a mix so I have disqualified it under my somewhat arbitrary legal system. And that’s pretty much it.

I have to be honest and say that I have no explanation for this.  Maybe the flavours that everyone likes from a goat’s cheese is not in tune with what the bacteria add.  Next time I find Baptiste, the one person who will know, I will ask.  That’s not to say that you shouldn’t make a blue with goat’s milk.  This one is a fine example of a good one and I’m sure that there are others.

So on to the cheese.  The rind is grey and covered with ash and quite edible [i.e. you really should eat it] and the paste is just off-white, soft, supple and uniform with pockets of blue mould well distributed throughout.  Since the cheese is relatively young it doesn’t have a strong aroma and also lacks the sharp freshness that you might expect from a goat’s cheese.  It does have a slight hint of lemony sharpness when you first bite it but this is soon overcome by the satisfying creaminess and the saltiness of the cheese and there’s a hint of pepper and grassy herbs at the end too.

It’s a canny enough cheese and I would gladly eat it again but it lacks a real character and a distinctive taste to be really memorable.  For wine, I’d go for a nice, crisp white such as a sauvignon blanc, quite possibly from the Loire valley just for a hint of locality to the event.

Today’s cheese is T’Chiot Biloute

I like beer.  I like cheese. A cheese ripened with beer.  OK.  I’ll give it a go.

That sounds like bravado.  it isn’t really.  Other than novelty cheeses [yes, you Wensleydale with Cranberries.  And you, layered cheeses], I will try anything twice.

This is a cheese from the north of France, near to St Aubin from a farm called, rather dramatically, La Ferme du Pont des Loups or the Farm of Wolf Bridge.

You know how I like a good ancient saint.  St Aubin, or St Albinus of Angers, is a pretty good one.  He has some fine legends about getting people out of prison.  In one story he tried to get a woman called Etherie released after she was imprisoned by King Childebert.  His negotiations failed so he went off to visit Etherie in prison only for the prison guard to drop dead at Albinus’s feet.  This was seen as a triumph of his power and Etherie was released.  In another legend, he prayed all night for the release of some men.  In the morning, the wall of their prison cell collapsed and they escaped.  The most important thing you need to know about St Albinus is that you invoke his help when you are threatened by pirates. Don’t forget.

It’s a relatively new cheese, dating from the 1990s.  It’s made from unpasteurised cows’ milk.  The cheese is then brushed with beer [there is a version that is brushged with cider] and is then given a coating of fine breadcrumbs.  I have no idea which beer it is but I guess that it’s not Kronenbourg or something equally pointless.  It’s a relatively small cheese which weighs about 170g and comes wrapped in plastic which I found a little odd.  I expect that this slows the maturation of the cheese and allows it to be more standardised but it also removes the stage of affinage that may0 not be carried out by the cheesemaker but by the affineur, who will bring the cheese to its proper stage of maturity.  Obviously, depending on the affineur, you will get slight variations on the same cheese.

The crust of the cheese is a nice pale orange, much like many of the other washed rind cheeses of northern France such as the Maroilles or the Pont l’Eveque.  The cheese is relatively soft under the skin and gives lightly to the touch.  The crust is not sticky like other washed rind cheeses, I suppose thanks to the breadcrumbs.

The paste is a pale ivory with some eyes, or spaces, throughout and the aroma is, like such cheeses, stronger than the taste.  It is a mild, creamy cheese with a slightly yeasty hint and a slight sweetness and you can eat the paste and rind.  Although you can obviously eat this accompanied by a wine, this is a cheese from the North, not far from Belgium.  I’d take this with a good beer, perhaps not so strong as it to drown the delicate flavour.  Try a decent blonde, ambre or Biere de Garde.

 

 

Today’s cheese is Brie Noir

This cheese is almost mythological.  I mentioned its rumoured existence some time ago here but I have never found it.  Until now.

My preferred cheese shop has set up a little area called the Little Shop of Horrors.  Here they display a range of gruesome misfits, a rogues’ gallery of cheeses.  The tough, gnarly cheeses that you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley when you’re only armed with some flimsy cheese knife and a cream cracker.  But these are the same cheeses that demand and deserve respect.

As a slight aside, I have a bugbear with people who say that people must earn respect.  This is simply not true.  We have a duty to respect everyone we meet or at least respect their existence and their rights.  Of course we are not required to be everyone’s friend but we should at least take the time to understand that everyone has a past and history that we know pretty much nothing about.  We should not assume anything but we should grant everyone the fundamental right of being respected as a human.  That sounds like some terrible platitudinous self help book so I apologise for the phrasing but not the sentiment.

Brie is a popular cheese and it’s fair to say that pretty much everyone knows it.  It is one of France’s classics.  There are two main Bries, the Brie de Meaux and the Brie de Melun.  The Melun is a more powerful and pungent Brie and the Meaux is more approachable and acceptable to the majority of palates.

A Brie is normally matured for a month or two.  But what happens if you have too much Brie.  OK.  It’s a fair question:  Can you really have too much Brie?  I guess yes must be the answer since it seems that, during in a time of such abundance, there was too much Brie.  And the Brie was matured for a lot longer.  Brie Noir, or Black Brie if you must, has been matured for around ten months.  Some will say matured and some will say abandoned.  The pale, young Bries will belong to the foppish aristocracy.  The tough Brie Noir will belong with the peasants and the workers, easily transported in pockets and bags.

Gone is the ivory paste and the white downy rind.  Now we have a cheese with a paste the colour of dark vanilla fudge, if paste is the word for something as firm as a cheddar but drier.  The rind is more brown now and cracked, not just little delicate Japanese crackling in pottery though, these are fissures.

The smell is stronger and obviously less fresh than a typical Brie but it is not offensive.  It’s not an eye-watering cough inducing smell.  You know it’s going to have a kick though.

And the texture is akin to other aged cheeses such as the Comte.  It’s not as granular as a parmesan but it is more punchy.  It’s taste is quite caramelly but with some sharpness.  It is strong though, so don’t eat it as the first cheese on the cheese board.  The taste is very, very long.

But here’s the next odd thing.  It is sometimes recommended that you eat this cheese with some coffee.  Not wine. Coffee.  The more ardent connoisseur will take it with their breakfast coffee.  I discussed it in the cheese shop and we decided that an espresso would be ideal.  Perversely it works. The coffee’s slight bitterness adds to the caramelly sweetness and there’s almost a hint of cocoa.  You don’t need very much either, imagine it’s a small sweet on the side of your saucer since that’s all you need.  This isn’t something to eat in great slabs.  At €60 per kg, you might be wise to measure your intake.  But you don’t need much.  A small piece is enough to give you the taste and experience.  Perhaps like good design or a fine and pure chocolate, less really is more.

Today’s cheese is Bleu de Montbriac

Today I am ashamed to say that I am betraying the small scale cheesemaker.

There are three levels of authenticity in French cheese.

The first is the farmhouse cheesemaker.  Their cheese is often made on the farm and will be made from cheese from cows that live on the farm.  This is the truest, most honest and authentic cheese.  Here you have a sense of that most important of things in traditional French cuisine, the terroir.

Terroir essentially refers to all of the aspects of the location of production that are inherent in the product such as climate, soil, flora etc.  And a part of this also suggests to me the traditions, history and customs of a place.  And all of these things are found, in one way or another, in a region’s foods, particularly in the cheese. For the French, the place where their food is produced is hugely important.  All of the fruit and vegetable stalls in the markets show where the various items come from, and if they are French, what area of France they come from.  If I wanted to go off one one, here’s where I’d let this blog entry spiral off into psychogeography.  Which is a fine and entertaining topic and style, if not sometimes overly self indulgent.  But if this blog is anything, it’s self indulgent.

The second level is artisanal.  These cheeses are made in a certain place with milk sourced from multiple farms in that area.  As you can see, the sense of place is being diluted.  It is no longer possible to be so specific and the terroir is no longer so apparent.

The third level, and the least satisfactory to the connoisseur, is industrial.  And you can see the disdain for this type of cheese in its name.  Industriel.  How could there be anything authentic here?  This is the world of machines and industrial estates and manufacturing units.

And so today’s cheese is an industriel cheese.  But I did buy it the fromagerie, so I’m not all bad.

This is a bleu, but a lesser blue you will struggle to find.  And it is creamy and sweet.  And wonderful if you have some good bread and some good wine.

It’s a pasteurised [so it’s already losing much of its uniqueness there] cow’s milk cheese made in the Haute Loire, in a town called Beauzac, not far from St Etienne. Yes, that St Etienne.

It’s a relatively small cheese, weighing only about a pound.  The rind is grey from ash and it’s quite edible.  Like many cheeses, you’re just throwing money away if you don’t eat the rind since it’s normally pretty good and will often add to the overall pleasure to be had from the cheese.

The paste is a pale hay yellow with very occasional eyes.  And very occasional hints of blue from penicillium glaucum, the same mould you’ll find in Bleu de Gex .  In the picture, you can just about see some blue around one of the eyes to the left.  And that’s it.  More will come with a little more age but it’s not wildly blue.  It’s not a strong blue and it doesn’t give you a real kick like a Stilton or a Roquefort can.  If you have people coming around who claim not to like blue cheeses, they could quite easily tackle this.

The paste, once you bring the cheese to room temperature, is soft and creamy and will start to run beautifully, perfect for scooping up on some crisp bread and served along side a light fruity red [maybe a Beaujolais] or a fruity white wine [a Vouvray perhaps?].

And apologise and raise a glass to the artisan cheese makers before you take a sip.

Today’s cheese is Tomme Crayeuse

This was the first time I had seen this cheese and so, naturally I had to buy it.

In the world of traditional French cheese making this is a relatively new arrival, having been created in 1997 by the magnificently named Max Schmidhauser in the Savoie region of south eastern France.

There are some cheeses of the traditional type that are still created, either to satisfy the cheesemaker and his artisan ways, to fill a gap in the market or range, or perhaps, simply through serendipity.  Either way, it is rare to see anything approaching novelty cheese in France.  Maybe I’m not looking hard enough but the most offensive thing I’ve seen are those little round balls of goat cheese covered in herbs as an apero.  And that’s not offensive.  Not offensive in the same way as Wensleydale with apricots in. Or Wensleydale with cranberries, or those awful layered cheeses where you find a band of rubbery Double Gloucester and a band of Stilton.  The UK has some magnificent cheeses but they [note the use of “they”] also have some of the most callous marketeers and witless consumers.  The same people who allow pizza with hotdog sausage in the crust. Yes, them.

It’s a traditional tomme shape, about ten or 15 centimetres high and maybe twenty or thirty centimetres in diameter.

A tomme is a generic name for a cheese, often from Savoie, that are usually the same cylindrical shape and size.  And that’s pretty much it.

It is a cows milk cheese and is normally aged for two months.  The crust has a bloom of grey, white and yellow, the crust is maybe a millimetre or two thick and quite edible.  The ivory to white paste is layered, with the layer nearest the crust being soft and starting to run and the centre has a slightly firmer paste, with a couple of eyes, perhaps like a vignotte but not at all chalky like a badly matured Brie.  As an aside, the word “crayeuse” means chalky but maybe this means the colour rather than the consistency.

It has a delicate aroma, and very creamy taste and slightly salty with only a hint of refreshing lemon sourness.  This is case for definitely eating the rind since a piece of this cheese, with the rind, some of the runny bit and the firmer paste, spread on a piece of decent bread is grand.  And of course, if you were going to have some wine then a light red from the Loire Valley or a good, crisp dry white would be splendid.

Today’s cheese is Saint Florentin

This isn’t a goat’s cheese but it is a cheese associated with a saint from the Dark Ages.  And what do saints from the Dark Ages mean?  Cheese and miserable martyrdom.  Two popular themes.

I do enjoy a good martyrdom.  Well, I’ll clarify, I enjoy a good historical martyrdom.  I can’t say people killing one another for their beliefs is a particularly edifying act.  So stop it.  OK? Spanish churches and Latin religious art are particularly rich sources of martyrdom art.  I really enjoy statues to dead saints when they are represented as dying but reaching out to the viewer.  Always a relaxing experience.

Traditionally made in Yonne, an area of Burgundy, around Auxerre.

And Saint Florentin, well, he encountered King Crocus of the Vandals who was none to pleased with Florentin’s religion so, to stop his evangelising, pulled out his tongue.  To make doubly sure, Crocus chopped of Florentin’s head in 408 in the town of St Pierre-de-Clages.  That should stop any evangelising.  But perhaps none of this true and Florentin was really a bishop in Sion.

Crocus was hugely influential and was a friend to Roman emperors and supported Constantine the Great’s candidacy as Roman emperor.  Constantine became the first Christian emperor so perhaps Crocus chose not to mention his encounter with Florentin and Florentin’s friend Hilaire, whose martyrdom Crocus also attached with.

Saint-Florentin is a fresh cheese made with unpasteurised cows’ milk.  There is a more traditional version which I have not seen yet which is aged for around two months but the ones I buy tend to be much younger, maybe a month old.  Apparently this cheese is on its last legs and not many people make it anymore, which is a shame, as it’s a rich and indulgent but mild and salty cheese.

Delicate, cannot be man handled without it collapsing into a heavenly creamy paste.  The rind is soft,rumpled and pale yellow and almost slick on the ivory white paste below.  The heart of the paste tends to be soft but slightly resistant to the touch whereas there is a delicious semi liquid layer between this firmer heart and the rind.  When I say firm, it’s not a hard cheese, it’s as firm as a goats cheese.

You don’t cut this cheese you more scoop it onto your bread with a knife and I can imagine it being marvelous wrapped with some leafy fresh herbs in some flatbread and a light, slightly chilled red like a Brouilly.

 

A Grand Meal During the Siege of Paris

In 1870, following an argument over Luxembourg [it’s tempting to be rude about Luxembourg again, but I won’t since they can cause wars and humiliating defeats] and the Spanish throne, the Prussians and the Germans declared war on France.

Germany wasn’t a unified country until 1871, just before the fall of Paris.

It was all rather embarrassing for France and they were defeated, distressingly easily, in a number of battles including the final humiliation at Sedan where Napoleon III and his army were captured.  Zola described the defeats and the chaos in his book La Débâcle, the penultimate of his mighty series of Rougon-Macquart novels.  The Prussians encircled Paris for four months from September 1870 until January 1871 when Paris fell and the Germans were granted a ceremonial entrance to the city as part of the surrender before returning home with Alsace and Lorraine tucked safely under their arms.

Things, as you might expect, were pretty grim under the siege and food was somewhat limited.  The animals in the zoo were slaughtered and it was possible to buy elephant, kangaroo, yak and buffalo meat on the Boulevard Haussmann.  Here’s a menu from a Christmas dinner from 1870 featuring camel, elephant, bear and wolf as well as cat, rat and antelope.  I like how camel is roasted in the English style.  We’re famed for roasting camel.

 

Once that had run out people were reduced to eating other animals as this menu, described by William Serman, shows:

Consommé of horse with millet

Dog liver brochettes au maître d’hôtel

Minced back of cat with mayonnaise

Filleted shoulder of dog with peas

Rat salami à la Robert

Dog gigot with baby rats

Begonia in juice

Plum pudding in juice with horse marrow

Dessert and wine

 

A tasty selection and, perhaps fortunately, I don’t have the recipes.  Although it’s pretty hard to find the ingredients even if I did.

Of course the people of Paris were starving and these things, as revolting as they may seem, were much in demand. As Donny Gluckstein points out they were priced way beyond the reach of the normal persons’ purse.  So despite the misery of the situation, the rich were still flaunting their wealth and ability to consume.  Some might call it hoarding. So it goes…

Following the French capitulation and the all to apparent sense of betrayal the Paris Commune sprang up and, for a short but thrilling time, Paris was run by the people for the people until the French government and its forces crushed the rebels in an astonishingly violent and brutal battle which saw over 30,000 people killed in a week.  A government declaring war on its own people?  So it goes…

Today’s Cheese is Cabricharme

The theme of goats’ cheese continues.  This is a slightly different one though.  This is a Belgian goats’ milk cheese.  I have to apologise to the Belgians because, and I don’t know why, I was almost surprised when I learned of this cheese.  There’s no reason for this of course.  They are sandwiched between the Dutch, the French and the Germans, all of whom can make good cheese, so why not Belgium?

Yes, I know Belgium also has a border with Luxembourg but I am, cruelly perhaps, suggesting that Luxembourg really couldn’t sandwich anyone.

So this cheese then.  It’s a classic rind washed cheese, with a nice, hay coloured, quite dry and quite thick rind that shows no sign of cracking.  The paste is semi firm and supple and is a beautiful ivory colour with some small eyes sparsely distributed throughout.  And best of all, it’s an unpasteurised artisanal cheese.

Rind washed cheeses are bathed or washed liberally, often with brine but occasionally with brine with a fair content of beer, liquor or wine.  Washing the rind helps to protect the paste since the rind doesn’t tend to crack and therefore the cheese matures within its own protective skin.  These cheeses also tend to be saltier because of the brine and, best of all, they tend to be stinkier.  Some washed rind cheeses often have quite sticky, orangey rinds because of the bacteria that favour such damp conditions.  You might also find a slight crunch in the rinds from the salt crystals that form after the brining process.  As mentioned elsewhere, you can eat the rind on these cheeses so give it a go.  Don’t eat a piece of the rind on its own though.  Make sure you try a bit of the cheese with the paste AND the rind.  This will give you a much better idea of the true flavour of the cheese.

This isn’t a particularly stinky cheese though.  It has a milky freshness to it that’s slightly acidic [without the goaty sharpness] and is buttery smooth with just a hint of graininess.  The paste really coats your mouth and is quite dominating without being strong or overwhelming but you’d want to eat this later on from the cheeseboard as it will stop you from enjoying milder cheeses.

I guess, since it’s a Belgian cheese, you could try eating this with a good, dry, hoppy Belgian beer or even a granite dry white wine.

Today’s Goat Cheese is Selles Sur Cher

This is the week of eating goat cheese.  The other day it was Taupinette and today it’s the turn of Selles Sur Cher.

This is a classic AOC cheese from the region of, unsurprisingly, Selles Sur Cher in the Loir et Cher region.  The commune is a couple of hundred kilometres south west of Paris.

This maybe a good time to explain AOC and these other things.

Us French [OK, I’m not really French but I live here so that’s pretty much as good as] love rules and we love it when the state does lots and controls things.  Even down to making up new words.  

AOC stands for Appellation d’origine contrôlée and it’s a French system to control the production and branding of certain traditional foods which are strongly linked to geographical areas.  The idea goes back to Royal decrees governing the production of Roquefort [a truly great cheese for another day] in the 15th century.  There are all sorts of things that are under this system such as various wines, herbs from Provence, ciders, honeys, butter, charcuterie etc.  

There are no beers since the French appear to be incapable of producing decent beer.

There are also a number of similar schemes maintained by the EU and, in an order showing the declining difficulty of achieving each, there are Protected Designation of Origin (PDO), Protected Geographical Indication (PGI), and Traditional Speciality Guaranteed (TSG).  Selles Sur Cher has applied for the PDO label.

So, as you’ve guessed, it’s made with goat cheese and preferably unpasteurised milk.  The cheese is about 10 or 15 centimetres across [about five inches] and is a disc shape with slightly sloping sides, perhaps like a cone with the top chopped off.  Its rind is wrinkled and dark grey with a light and soft bloom.  The grey comes from from the application of ash.  Again, the rind is perfectly edible.  If you cut it off you’re wasting your own money and discarding the work and labour of the cheesemakers and affineurs.  On your head be it.

The cheese tends to be matured for about ten days to three weeks.  When you cut it open you can immediately see one of the reasons for using ash.  The contrast between the grey rind and the brilliant white of the paste is quite beautiful.  The paste is rich, creamy and consistent and the cheese has a very clean, bright fresh taste.  The taste has no great length and is almost verging on the bland.  It really is one of the most delicate cheeses around and if you’re going to put this on the cheese board make sure it’s eaten first.  I find it a good lunchtime cheese with some lightly salted tomatoes and some bread.  And it’s very moreish.  Of course you want some wine with it.  I’d go for a dry white or a light red such as a Chinon or a Bourgueil.

Can I tell the difference between this and the Taupinette from the other day?  Yes, when I eat them together and I can see which one is which.  The Taupinette has slightly more flavour.  Would I remember for next time or tell them apart in a blind taste test?  Quite probably not.   I obviously have a lot of homework to do.