In this installment
Zingerman’s French Cheeses
About mold-ripened cheeses
Passing the cheese course
Comté Cheese
Brebis d’Ossau Cheese
Mimolette Cheese
Zingerman’s French Cheeses
We “direct import” many of our French cheeses. What does that mean? Well, instead of buying cheese through an importer, who buys it through a distributor in France every two weeks, we select our cheese directly from our French affineur (“cheese ager”). Our affineur then puts our cheese on a plane direct to Detroit, rather than sailing it over the ocean–which can take up to four weeks!
Why does this make a difference? As you know, cheese needs the right environment to become or stay really great cheese. It needs tender nurturing on a daily basis because when cheese is left alone, the bottom becomes soggy and the top dries out. The benefit of flying the cheese direct from the affineur to Zingerman’s is that we get it within 24 hours. This process returns the cheese to a familiar environment (our specially-designed cheese room) sooner rather than later. That means we all end up with better tasting cheese–which is what direct importing is all about.
Our affineur is Chantal Plasse. A native of Lyons, France, Chantal was raised in the heartland of French gastronomy. Chantal is the daughter of Jean Plasse, founder of the renowned Lyons charcuterie, La Ferme Beaujolais. Growing up in the charcuterie environment ensured Chantal a thorough knowledge, understanding, and of course, appreciation of fine foods and wines. Chantal’s love of food led to her grand passion– CHEESE! She trained with Master cheesemongers Pierre Androuet and Pierre Grezes from the prestigious Paris cheese affineur and merchant, Androuet. Androuet also has a restaurant where cheese is the focus of every course. (I promise, this is not over the top–I’ve had a chance to visit, and it’s wonderful!)
Chantal has spent the past 16 years searching out traditional French cheese makers. She then selects cheeses directly from these makers and lovingly matures them before sending the cheese to us. A lot of what Chantal does is very similar to what Neal’s Yard Dairy does (the store we select our British cheese from). While most of us cheese lovers like to think that great cheese is available on every French street corner, Chantal is the first to tell you that this is, unfortunately, not the case. There’s as much mass-produced cheese in France as there is here, that’s why it is important to know exactly where your cheese comes from.
What is an affineur?
As I briefly mentioned above, “affineur” is French for a person who matures/ ages cheese. In France, the job of the affineur is deemed just as important (sometimes more) as the cheese maker. There, one person cares for and milks the animals, then there’s the cheese maker and finally, the affineur. (Each stage is taken very seriously in France.) Most affineurs, especially in Paris, operate as a retail store with onsite aging facilities. The French select what cheese to buy based on the reputation of the affineur. It is also very common to find the affineur’s name on the cheese label, not the cheese maker. (In small town markets however, cheese makers tend to both age and sell the cheese.) Recently, some of the larger French affineurs have started making their own cheese. While the cheese is good, we still select our cheese traditionally—from someone whose only focus is on maturing cheese. A badly-made cheese won’t mature into a great tasting one–no matter how good the affineur. It is in the best interest of the affineur to only buy from the best cheese maker possible. Which is exactly what Chantal does for Zingerman’s.
As I mentioned before, cheese is soured (off) milk, and, as well-known cheese monger Steve Jenkins says, “It is the affineur’s responsibility to help nature turn cheese into the best it can be, by controlling [its] spoilage…” For instance, if you think of cheese as a slow moving mass inside a container, and that container is the rind, it is the affineur’s job to keep the mass moving evenly within the rind. It’s not actually liquid inside the cheese—in fact, you’d be hard pressed to ever see the inside of a young cheese move. But, they do—slowly.
As cheese matures, the texture changes. For hard cheeses moisture evaporates and the cheese becomes firmer. With soft cheeses the mold “roots” make the interior texture softer. However, if you left any cheese-style unattended, eventually the moisture would seep to the bottom and the top would dry out. To keep this from happening, an affineur turns the cheese every couple of days, which moves the moisture from top to bottom, thus allowing the cheese to mature evenly.
Affineurs also tend to the rind–the linchpin of a cheese’s flavor. Without the rind you would not have the cheeses you know and love. (This is true of all traditional cheese not just natural or white-mold rinds.) If a mold-rind cheese is left in the right conditions, it takes about a week for the mold to completely encompass the cheese. After the week is over, it needs attention; otherwise it’ll grow out of control, become very thick, and suppress the cheese’s flavor. The aim is to equalize the rind/cheese ratio according to a particular style in order to balance the flavor. So how is it done? By rubbing and patting the cheese gently enough so it doesn’t “kill” the rind, yet firmly so that the mold doesn’t grow too thick. If you take your Brie lait cru and gently stroke or pat the rind, the mold will depress slightly under your touch. A good affineur knows from sight and touch when a cheese is at its peak and ready to eat.
Like good wine, traditional cheese matures at its own pace— there is no set formula. It takes a skilled affineur to know exactly how much to touch the cheese; when to touch and turn it; the temperature and humidity it should be exposed to; and when to make adjustments. Add to this the many different styles of traditional cheese (there are currently 350 in France alone), and you’ll begin to see how knowledgeable an affineur needs to be. A French affineur apprentices for many years with a Master, but it takes a lifetime to truly know every cheese. Knowing this, and knowing how delicious and improved the cheese we’ve been getting is, my hat is off to our affineur, Chantal.
About mold-ripened cheeses
Don’t be afraid. Fuzzy cheese rinds might look scary, but they usually hold treasures. Fuzzy rinds encase voluptuous silky centers. For me, white mold cheeses represent the beginning of spring. Spring is the traditional beginning of the season for making this style of cheese, as the animals have begun to eat meadow fields again. The wild grasses and flowers flavor the milk giving it a taste unique to the flora of a particular area at a particular time. (French spring weather can start in late February, that’s why we can enjoy weeks-old “spring” cheeses just as our spring begins.) The season finishes in the fall–when the animals are fed hay again. You may see the cheeses again— through the fall and winter—but the flavor isn’t the same. These creamy beauties are our most indulged-in cheeses. I know from working behind the cheese counter that when we put out a gooey-centered, white-mold cheese, our guests go crazy. There is an almost fatal attraction these cheeses evoke… an unexplained, mystical fascination with the creamy, unctuous texture, and nutty, whipped cream flavor. What makes these cheeses the seductive mistress’ of the cheese world?
The rind on any cheese plays a very important role, but in no other cheese style is it as responsible for affecting the flavor and texture as much as in mold-ripened cheeses. With mold-ripened cheeses, the maturing (affinage) is paramount, because without the right attention the rind can die—or worse, run rampant. In either case, the cheese is lost. It is the important role of the affineur to coax the rind to flourish, then select just the right moments to “tame” the rind so the cheese evolves into the alluring mystery that captivates us so. If you took any fresh cheese and left it in the right conditions, it would begin to grow a rind of mold. What the mold does is protect the fresh curd. No one puts it better than William Studd: “The surface rind extends the life of the fragile curd by acting as a barrier against contamination and moisture loss.” In addition to protecting the cheese, these molds also affect the ripening of the interior. The mold grows “roots” (kind of like a tree’s) in the cheese, and as the roots grow, they change the consistency from firm to soft. You can’t actually see the “roots,” but if you’ve ever cut into a cheese and it still has a chalky center, that’s because the “roots” have only gone as deep as the cheese is soft.
The two types of mold
Mold-ripened cheese falls into two categories, natural rind and white-mold. The mold in natural rind cheeses is put there by nature—it’s grown without a lot of help from the maker. White-mold cheeses have their rind grown using a strain of culture (the most popular being penicillium candidum). Natural rind cheeses pick up indigenous or “local” molds found in the atmosphere and the caves they are matured in. It is these place-specific molds (along with their local milk) that produce flavors we recognize as being from one area. Because you can’t reproduce the molds elsewhere, you can’t reproduce the cheese made from them.
Sometimes, because they are natural, the molds won’t be a uniform color. They can be blue, gray, mauve, just about any color, sometimes all on the same cheese. White molds, on the other hand, offer the cheese maker a certain amount of control and “influence” over the flavor and texture of their cheese. They’re often created in laboratories to produce a certain effect, and the cheese maker buys them for that effect (not totally unlike choosing a topping for a sundae). The culture can be added to the milk at the beginning of the cheese making process or made into a solution that’s sprayed on the surface of the cheese. Both molds thrive in high humidity. As soon as the cheese is made it is placed in a “drying” room for about a day, then moved to a cave or maturing room which is about 55o ̊F with 95% humidity, a gentle amount of air movement. These cheeses appreciate and grow best in conditions that mushrooms like (damp and cool) and funny enough, some of these cheeses do have a slight mushroom-y flavor. I can’t say if this is a reflection on the conditions, or the milk, but certainly no mushrooms grow in the maturing rooms!
Don’t cut the curd
In mold-ripened cheeses, there is one aspect that is quite different from the other cheese styles we’ve tried, and it occurs during the cheese making process. In all other cheese making, the curd is cut into pieces. This cutting releases moisture (whey) that allows the milk solids to condense together. The cut curd is then placed into the cheese mold (to avoid confusion, this is not a white penicillium mold, but rather the “form” curd is placed into to form the shape of a cheese). However, with white mold and natural rind cheeses, the cheesemaker goes to great lengths to avoid breaking the curd at all. Why?
The aim is to keep as much moisture in the cheese as possible. Obviously, the curd is cut, but only by the ladle when it is placed gently, by hand, into its vat. The curd is then placed in the cheese forms and left to drain from it’s own weight. If you have a scientific mind, you may have worked out that because so much moisture is left in the cheese, it is lower in fat. In comparison to hard style cheeses like cheddar and Gruyère, which are pretty much all milk solids, softer cheeses are lower in fat—even though they look more fattening. This doesn’t mean they’re low-fat–but because of their creamy appeal folks tend to eat more than they would of hard style cheese. But if you want to really indulge (like me!) you can justify it by telling yourself they’re lower in fat!
A note on colored rinds and eating the rind
I mentioned that the mold on natural rind cheeses may be various colors. On top of that, this style of cheese is especially prone to picking up molds from its current environment, so, if you’ve kept your cheese in the fridge for a few days and it acquires different colored mold, you can just rub it gently with your finger, then chow down. Whatever color the mold, it represents a natural process and is quite edible (the only color to avoid is bright yellow).
Still, whether something is edible doesn’t mean everyone wants to eat it. Should you? It’s totally up to you—a matter of personal taste. A lot of French folks don’t eat the rind on a white mold but will on a natural rind. I think the rind adds a lot to the flavor and texture, but it also depends on the age of the cheese. Eating the rind will make the cheese stronger in flavor. So try a little without, then a little with, and decide. They’re your taste buds, and that’s the only taste that counts.
How do I know if the cheese is too old?
A cheese never really goes “off” because it’s made from soured milk to begin with. The age and strength of a cheese is a personal preference. Natural rind and white mold cheeses can be eaten quite young, especially if you prefer a more tart flavor and firmer center. In France, they are eaten when there is about half an inch of chalky center. In the U.S., this style of cheese is generally preferred soft all the way through. By waiting for the cheese to completely soften, you can sometimes encounter a smell of ammonia. This is perfectly safe and is just an indication that the cheese is more mature. Mold-ripened cheeses will continue to ripen and get softer, sometimes leaving you with an almost liquid center. If you leave the cheese whole, eventually it will harden, as all the moisture evaporates. In France, there is a cheese called Brie Noir which is aged for a year until it is very firm and dry—and is generally used to dip or soak in café au lait for breakfast.
Passing the cheese course
If you head to an American college town and randomly ask people what the “cheese course” is, 95 out of 100 would give you a rather puzzled look–some of them would probably hypothesize that it was some kind of class you had to take if you went to culinary school. Cross the Atlantic and ask 100 French folks the same question, and they’d probably all tell you without a second thought “it is the course you serve near the end of the meal just before the dessert.” This would pretty much sum up the state of the cheese course in our respective lands; in America it’s almost non-existent, in France, and most of Europe, it’s a generally accepted affair.
So, what is the cheese course?
Quite simply, it is a long standing part of the standard dinner service in Europe. Both in formal restaurants and in casual home settings, it’s pretty much the norm to bring out cheese near the end of the meal, after one has finished the main course. The dessert, or sweet course, follows the cheese. interpretation. On the other hand, Americans hardly ever think of serving cheese near the end of the meal. I’m not sure how or when we lost the cheese course in this country, but regardless, I think we’re missing out on one of the most enjoyable ways to eat cheese.
What cheeses are best for a cheese course?
It may sound silly to even mention it, but when it comes right down to it, just choose the cheeses you like. There’s no sense serving cheese you don’t want to eat, no matter how impressive it may look or sound. The point is to create a pleasurable part of an evening’s entertainment, to bring that enjoyable extra touch of elegance to the table, not to fit anyone else’s idea of the proper cheese course. Here are three rules of thumb:
- Choose cheeses whose flavors are compatible with the main course that’s being served. For example, say you serve a pungent garlic and saffron-scented bouillabaisse for dinner; you’ll want to find cheese flavors that won’t get lost in the aftermath of the main course. A nicely aged goat cheese, or a bit of beautiful blue Roquefort would make a good pairing. On the other hand, if you’re serving up a delicate fresh trout, look for cheeses with softer, less assertive flavors, like a nicely aged Comté or a mild goat cheese.
- Follow the regional styles of the main dish. If you’re serving a creamy risotto Milanese, use northern Italian cheeses: Gorgonzola, Taleggio, maybe some Fontina Val d’Aosta. More often than not, the cheeses of the region will be well suited to the local cooking—after a few hundred years together, one will have adapted to the other to create a mutually rewarding culinary relationship. If you’re serving food from a culture that doesn’t eat much cheese, it’s likely a good idea to skip the cheese course. Most Asian cuisines would fall into this category.
- Pick the best cheeses you can find. You’re looking for big bang for your cheese buck; buy small quantities, but buy the best. A few slivers of a great cheese will satisfy in a way that mediocre cheese never will. Eat it slowly. Don’t rush to judgment. Let the flavors settle on your tongue and melt their way around your mouth. This soft, melt-in-the-mouth cheese moment is what makes eating cheese in the latter part of the meal such a potent pleasure. The only cheeses that don’t work well after dinner are smoked or spiced cheeses; their flavors tend to be too intrusive when you’re trying to make your way gently from savory to sweet.
How many cheeses should I serve?
You can serve as many as you want or as few as one. There’s no right or wrong way to do this; the point isn’t to fill some magic formula for dining style and perfection. If it’s just a casual dinner, I think a single, simple, superb cheese will do just fine. If you’re entertaining, I’d recommend that you pick somewhere between one and five cheeses to serve after the main course. More than that, and you start to overwhelm your guests’ palates.
Which cheese goes with which?
When you decide to put together a selection of four or five different cheeses, there’s no hard or fast rules you have to follow. Most important is the diversity of flavor. If you’re looking to make a striking visual impression, take time to find cheeses that contrast in shape, color and size. A standard recipe for a good, five-cheese board would be an aged cheddar, a semi-soft cheese like Pont L’Eveque, a well-aged mountain Gruyère or Comté, a nice goat cheese and a blue cheese like Stilton or Roquefort. Serve them in that order—mildest to strongest, so that the stronger flavors don’t overwhelm the subtleties of their milder comrades in curd.
If you’re serving a group of guests with a particular interest in learning about food and regional cuisine, you can create quite an interesting cheese course by putting out a platter of seemingly similar cheeses. Few of us get the opportunity to taste three different “Swiss” cheeses at one sitting, but for the true cheese lover, it’s an enlightening experience. When you serve an aged Gruyère, French Comté, and a Swiss Emmental together, you’ll find that each has its own distinctive identity and character that is very different from its “Swiss” cousins. You can accomplish the same goal with contrasting goat cheeses, or cheddars from various farms.
How much cheese do I need?
Not much really. In most cases, a half an ounce to an ounce per person, per cheese is more than enough. If you’re offering up a superb piece of Stilton for four, a quarter-pound wedge should be plenty. The point is to linger, to let the flavors lilt, not to fill up.
What do you serve with a cheese course besides cheese?
Bread, fruit or crackers are all fine accompaniments. Remember though, the idea is to add to the enjoyment of the meal, so serve your cheese course with things you like to eat. Often, a single loaf of country bread will do just fine. If you want to meld the cheese course and dessert into one big, end- of-the-meal merriment, fresh fruit can be a great choice—a handful of grapes, a couple of ripe figs or a tree-ripened peach. Be sure to seek out produce at its peak; you want to pick out fruit that will stand proudly at the side of your well-chosen cheeses. A handful of toasted nuts, such as walnuts, hazelnuts or almonds, can be nice too. Fruit and nut breads might be the best of both worlds. Goat cheeses have a particular affinity for walnut breads.
Let the cheese breathe
If your cheeses are wrapped in plastic—as is much of the cheese sold in this country–you’ll want to unwrap them at least an hour or so before serving to give them a chance to breathe. Without access to the open air, they tend to taste a bit flat; the oxygen deprivation seems to diminish the character and quality of the cheese. Fortunately, a few minutes of access to the open air and most cheeses will respond with the added life and luster you’re looking for. Also, remember to bring the cheeses to room temperature. Even the best farmhouse cheddar may get lost in the aftermath of a big meal if it’s served right out of the refrigerator!
Comté Cheese
Comté is a mountain cheese made in the Jura mountains of France’s Franche-Comté area, which is adjacent to Switzerland. Strict observance of specific production rules guarantees an authentic cheese that reveals the complete array of the Jura soil’s aromas and flavors. This wonderful cow’s milk cheese is made just outside the city of Lyon. The first time I tried this cheese, it took me a couple of tastes to believe it was made from cow’s milk. Even writing this today, I had to double check because the delicate, light texture could almost pass for goat’s milk. It takes a very talented hand to achieve this texture with cow’s milk. We sell many of these fabulous cheeses at the Deli every week–they are particularly popular as a simple lunch with a loaf of bread and leafy green salad.
Comté has many possible flavors with some being more interesting than others.
So, to discover why, and what elements create Comté’s flavors, Zingerman’s former retail manager, Matt Morgan, went to France to find out. Here is Matt’s journal from the trip:
“We visited the cellars of Rivoire-Jacquemin–the affineur we select Comté from. Our guide was a friendly man named Leon Piedmonte, the general manager and 30-year veteran of the cellar. Over the next few hours, he tasted cheese with us, and explained the multiple steps between the making of Comté and its export to the U.S. We tasted a few dozen cheeses, representing a wide range of production dates and areas. The flavors we tasted were a remarkable range, from bland to yogurt-y, and a cheddar-like tartness to garlicky and metallic.”
“Our favorites by far had delicious fruity, floral aromas, with a dense, tacky texture and granules of amino acids (small “salt-like” crystals found in artisanal, hard, aged cheeses). When we inquired where these cheeses came from, we were not entirely surprised to learn that they came from Comté makers located in high mountain (5,000 ft) pastures. We had often read that the high mountain pastures make more complex and interesting cheeses, and here we certainly tasted that to be true. We were astounded to learn that Comté is consumed by 40% of the French population and has the highest production figures of all French cheeses (appx. 38,000 tons a year).”
“I will never forget the mammoth aging rooms”
[The rooms had] 75,000 wheels of Comté, representing years of production from dairies up to 94 miles away. The cheeses were quietly resting in a series of aisles, each about the length of a football field. It had the feel of a library, quiet and cool, but instead of books, there were rows of cheese stacked on shelves 20 feet high! As Leon explained, the cheese is selected from the dairies at just a few weeks of age. At about four- and-half months of age, the cheeses are tasted and graded. Only then, when the quality becomes evident, is the cheese maker paid for his labors. In the first few months, the cheeses are brine- washed and scrubbed by a large machine (a relatively new contraption–before it was done by hand) that is driven down the aisles of the cellar by the staff. The machine handles two cheeses at a time, brush scrubbing and brining one while selecting the next from the shelf. Of course, the machine turns each cheese over before returning it to the shelf. After the cheeses have aged a few months, the washing then proceeds as needed by human hands.”
Brebis d’Ossau Cheese
I had the pleasure of visiting some Bearnaise cheese makers and enjoying their cheeses. Years later, the flavors and flowers are still fresh in my mind. I say flowers, because I think the Pyrenees may have been the most “flowerful” region of Europe I’ve ever traveled through. The Pyrenees are one of the few regions of France that are still home to hundreds of small cheese makers. While industrially-produced cheeses have made major gains in the lowlands, there are still hundreds of small mountain cheese makers left who stick to the same traditional methods their ancestors established centuries ago. Amongst these small-holders, flocks average a hundred to two hundred, which are still hand-milked, yielding the shepherd, on average, only two or three ten-pound wheels a day. This is labor intensive cheese–the curd is “cut” literally, by hand: the cheese makers reach an arm into their kettle of warm curd, and ever-so-slowly, they break it into small pieces from which the final cheese will be formed. This ancient technique protects the gentle flavor of the finished cheese and enhances the quality of the full-flavored mountain milk. Pyrenees cheeses like this French Mountain aren’t the kind that hit you over the head. Instead, they’re lovely, smooth, subtly fruity, with a nice little bit of a nose, the kind of cheese I could eat every day at lunch.
Mimolette Cheese
From the province of Normandy, in northwestern France, you’ll find one of the more interestingly shaped (and pretty delicious) cheeses made in France: Mimolette. Inspired by Dutch Edam, mimolette has become something all its own. Part of the reason for its unique character is the work of cheesemites that live off of the rind of the cheese. That may not sound like the most appetizing way to talk about a cheese, but the truth is mites are a part of the cheesemaking process and can even be a crucial part in the cheese developing its flavors. The French even refer to the mites as ‘tiny affineurs,’ further highlighting their importance, not their nuisance.
This is a classic French cheese that finds fans everywhere it travels. It’s sweet, like burnt sugar. It’s slightly nutty, with a dense yet smooth texture. For some, the texture reminds them of fudge and I think that’s pretty accurate a descriptor. All in all, it’s an easy cheese to enjoy regardless of your cheese eating experience. And since you might be wondering: the mites have moved on. You won’t be enjoying bug parts with your bites.