Almost made it....

Opened will write my trial and tribulations here soon but untiul then check out the webpage: http://thecourtyarddairy.co.uk/ !

Going solo - setting up The Courtyard Dairy

So i've gone and done it and left the lovely world of The Fine Cheese Co. in Bath to return North with my partner, Kathy.

What to do!  Well I thought I want to stay in cheese so with the help of fine wine retailer Buon Vino (http://www.buonvino.co.uk/)  i'm going to start a cheese shop in The Courtyard, Settle, BD24 9JY (www.inthecourtyard.co.uk/).

More to follow and i'll let you know when the website: www.thecourtyarddairy.co.uk is up and running!


PS Sorry about the pics on here - when BT took down the free site so went all the pics.  But fear not - they'll be back, along with all the blogs when I set up The Courtyard Dairy's website soon.

Rennet: how does it fit in with vegetarian cheese?

Vegetarian cheese is everywhere: pretty much every block of cheese you pick up in the UK will be made with vegetarian rennet. Now I’m all for equal rights and all that but the whole issue is a bit of paradox to me.

So we’d best start from the top: Rennet - What is it and what does it do?

Rennet is an essential part of the cheese making process (only very fresh, fragile curd cheeses can be made without it) being used to coagulate the milk and set it into jelly (Sam Holden is pictured here adding liquid rennet to the vat). It was probably discovered by accident when animal stomachs were used as vessels to store and transport milk in ancient times.

Rennet is an enzyme obtained from the fourth stomach of an unweaned calf (this can include veal calves, or even lamb and kid) but is nowadays available in a liquid form (though some still traditional producers - e.g. Beaufort - still use strips of dried stomach).

Why can it only come from young unweaned calves? Because at that stage in their life they’ve only consumed milk, so the natural enzyme for coagulating milk (chymosin) is present in large quantities. As the calves get older the amount of chymosin reduces and other enzymes take its place (those necessary for digesting other foodstuffs). This is why you can get various quality grades of rennet depending on how much chymosin is present: 100% chymosin from a young unweaned calf is the Cadillac of rennets.

Killing a young calf for its stomach? Isn’t that cruel?

Unfortunately, it is a cruel reality of the dairy industry: “The Achilles heel of Dairying”.

Think about it… for dairy farms to have constant milk supply, their animals must have offspring yearly. Naturally not all these offspring can be kept (otherwise there’d be an exponential population growth) and some of these calves are also unusable (male diary calves by the nature of breeding don’t produce the required quality or quantity of meat, although some diary farmers are now trying to use them for rose veal).

This is the paradox of the dairy industry: in order to have milk, many young calves are killed every year. So it is economic to use the stomach linings of these animals for rennet, bearing in mind that even if there were no demand for rennet, these animals would still be slaughtered. As rennet manufacturer BioRen says, “A YES to milk and milk products logically also means a clear YES to the use of natural rennet.”

So how does vegetarian rennet fit in?

With the advent of mass-produced cheese in the 80’s supermarkets found that they could provide for a larger market using vegetarian rennet. This was coupled at the time with problems sourcing quality calves rennet (problems which still exist to this day: Sam Holden of Hafod Cheese sources his rennet from New Zealand Calves - New Zealand doesn’t have a white veal industry so the welfare standard for calves is higher and they are slaughtered younger meaning the rennet is higher quality).

So the supermarkets turned to vegetarian rennet. Vegetarian rennet can be produced by two methods:
a) Some moulds (e.g. Rhizomucor miehei) are able to produce protelotic enzymes similar to rennet. By fermenting these moulds in a laboratory before concentrating and purifying them a vegetarian substitute called Microbial Rennet can be manufactured. This is the most common rennet in the UK.
b) Alternatively, organisms (such as yeast, bacteria or mould) have been genetically modified to secrete the rennet enzyme ‘Chymosin’.

Therefore vegetarian rennet in general (see the below!) is really neither natural nor traditional and many believe it also doesn’t produce as good a depth of flavour (have a read of Patrick McGuigan’s notes here and Andy at Handyface carried out some interesting home experiments.

There is some evidence that using Microbial Rennet for aged cheeses may be one factor that contributes to bitterness and lower yields. Although it is worth pointing out rennet manufacturers have worked (and continue to work) to resolve issues like this, or have developed other methods of manufacture to cover these defects in the final cheese (such as balancing with sweetness). There are also some mighty fine artisan vegetarian rennet cheeses: Old Winchester, Cotherstone and Lord of The Hundreds to name a few.

Personally, I prefer ‘traditional’ rennet cheeses as I feel rennet produces a better cheese (and is one of the reasons many AOC / Protected cheeses cannot use vegetarian rennet, e.g. Parmesan, Brie de Meaux, Roquefort); it is a more traditional way of operating, and it is an economic use of the calves. Thankfully more and more artisan producers are using traditional rennet.

Vegetable Rennet: the exception to the rule.

Some plants naturally contain some of the protelotic qualities needed to coagulate milk. In general they don’t really work that well and that’s why they’re not used (apparently even nettles were used in olden days).

Yet in parts of Spain and Portugal the Cardoon thistle is (traditionally) used as rennet. It works quite well, producing a very distinctive texture and flavour: the stamens are ground before being infused in warm water, which is then added to the milk in the same way as rennet. (Mary Holbrook’s farm near Bath also uses Cardoon rennet for her characteristic Tiley and Cardo). Cardoon rennet works well with goats’ and sheep’s milk, but with cows’ milk it producers a very bitter cheese caused by the way it reacts with the proteins.


The science: how rennet works

Milk is full of protein particles; most of these (>80%) are formed into the casein micelle. One part of this micelle (kappa casein: located on the extremity of the micelle) is negatively charged. This means it repels the other casein micelles, causing milk to stay in its liquid form (a bit like putting two magnets of the same pole together).

Rennet contains an enzyme (chymosin) which cuts this negatively charged kappa casein protein so that the negative end of the chain dissolves into the liquid (it will leave with the whey).
This is the primary phase of the coagulation.

With this neutralisation of the protein micelle the secondary phase can begin: the proteins no longer repel each other and start to join together. This happens because the freshly cut kappa casein chain (now called para-kappa-casein) is sensitive to picking up minerals. Its cut end links up with phosphate and then calcium minerals present in milk to form a bridge that joins the casein micelles together (effectively creating a protein web).

Milk that is poor in calcium and phosphate (such as goats’ and sheep’s milk as well as old cows’ milk) will have calcium phosphate added in to help improve this stage: this is why it can sometimes be seen on the ingredients list of cheese).

As the proteins join together (coagulate) to form the curd/junket, the web also traps in the fats and minerals.

This junket will go on to form the cheese (after other stages of manufacturer: cutting, draining, pressing, ageing).

Most of the rennet will leave with the whey: approximately 0.0000005g per kg is left in the finished cheese.

 

I'm back...

I had been posting all my blogs at www.lesaffines.com for a while but BT has dropped thier free hosting. So i'm back to blogger! Look out for some more cheesy posts coming soon!

Cheshire

SatNav is nigh on useless at finding farms. Which means that, late, and rapidly becoming an expert in the Cheshire and Shropshire countryside, I was getting stressed. Even the locals at the post office couldn’t point me in the right direction – a shame they didn’t know that Britain’s finest Cheshire was made less than a mile away.

It’s Britain’s oldest-known cheese, said to have been made before the Roman invasion, and is even mentioned in the Doomsday book (1086). It was once more famous and wider-eaten than Cheddar; in the industrial revolution it was sent down by the shipload from Liverpool at the request of London’s gentry.

My first venture up North since returning from the promised cheese lands of France had to be to visit two of my favourite, yet vastly underrated cheeses: Cheshire and Lancashire. The French just don’t understand or appreciate the classic lactic and acidic British ‘crumbly’ that is epitomised in these cheeses.

My visit was to Appleby’s of Hawkstone; the last remaining producer of unpasteurised traditional cloth bound Cheshire. A far cry from the two-thousand-plus farms making it in 1914; the decline that was caused by draconian Milk Marketing Board regulations, and requirements to make a fast setting, drier, waxed or vac-packed cheese. This in turn gave rise to the soggy crumbly bags of factory Cheshire that give it a bad name to this day.

Yet, one farmer struggled on, in her effort to preserve Cheshire’s name and to educate the public on what it can be like. Appleby’s is clean and zesty, slightly tangy, quite moist yet crumbly and savoury, a total contrast to the other Cheshires still around. Paul and Sarah Appleby are the most recent generation, taking over the reigns handed down over three generations from when Lucy Appleby learnt her craft at the local college.

Along with the parents, Edward and Christine (who still cast a critical eye over the cheese), we watched their cheese-maker, Garry Gray. He captures the minerally saline flavour of the milk from the Cheshire salt marshes on which their cows graze.

The unpasteurised milk, and the techniques of old: long acidic maturation, traditional starters, crumbling the blocks by hand, cloth binding... all contribute to this cheese’s complex interesting flavours and textures.

If you can find it, buy some; and should you find yourself with too much (never a problem!), follow Paul Appleby’s advice – fry great slabs with bacon, or crumble it, cover with milk and sliced onions, then bake. The acidity goes really well with sweet fruits and fruitcake too.

Whey!

Whey! Let’s have some meat!

Whey, Lactoserum, Petit Lait: the by-product of making cheese. What do you do with it? That’s one of the big questions in life. Sometimes a little is kept to add to the next day’s milking, to start off the coagulation (like a bread starter), and those dedicated souls who still make their own rennet use it to dissolve the veal stomach (see my Beaufort Alpage blog - coming soon).

However the majority goes down the drain, mores the pity, as its still jam-packed with protein, fats and minerals. Some entrepreneurial Italians decided to make a mighty fine cheese by reheating it and adding acid, and re-coagulating the proteins that are left to form a fragile curd called Ricotta. Some cheese-makers put the whey in a centrifuge and separate out the cream that remains, using it to make a mighty fine butter. Many farmers put it on their fields as fertiliser and some industrial firms freeze-dry it and use it to add protein to foods – such as baby food (read the ingredients…). The monks at the Abbaye de Tamié, use it to heat the abbey (by converting it, rather niftily, to methane).

But the age-old method for reusing whey was to feed it to the pigs. To do this in Britain the whey must originate and be used on the same farm, to minimize cross contamination, so it’s not that common anymore. Yet in France, that’s not a problem, and as my local pork producer offered to show me the whey (pardon the pun), I popped in for a visit (and to lend a hand, naturally).

As is typical in France, it’s a very small, not intensive, farm where Jean Claude keeps pigs and sheep. He receives the whey once a week, and feeds it to the pigs. As you can see they adore it! He says it also contributes to the flavour of the meat. All the meat he produces here he processes himself into various forms (nothing is wasted – tripe, cooked head, pigs trotter salad are all on offer) and sold on local markets. So I helped make a pigs liver terrine and, we’re in France after all, it finished with a mighty fine meal with all the family!

Great subsistence farming. If you’re in the Roanne area look out for Malème’s pork products.

Our Terroir

A quick mention to a friend of mine, Marie-Laure. Whom i lived and worked with for Mons Fromagerie in France. A passionate cheesemaker and eater she is studying all over Europe to learn about cheese. Please have a look at her blog: http://ourterroir.blogspot.com/.

Cheese Rolling Lives On!

It may have been cancelled, but the Gloucester Cheese Rolling lived on. Despite wet weather, misty conditions and a heavy police presence, at 12am today hundreds of revellers turned up to Coopers Hill. Without a hitch or major injury (though my ribs don't half hurt and I think I’ve dislocated a finger) the traditional four races happened.
Chris Anderson, again, took home the bragging rights - winning all of the mens’ races.

Did I race?
Course I did.

AOP – a double-edged sword?

"What there’s a good cheese? And it hasn’t got an AOP? Quick give it one fast! Of course we always made it, it’s our terroir, our history, it originated here…”

When it comes to protection, the French are on their game (they’d have to be with their reputation as lovers…). They now hold 46 AOPs for cheese, of which 19 have been awarded since 1990. If they can protect it, they will. And they’ve got a reason to, after losing great names like Brie and Camembert to the world. (Although Brie de Meaux, Brie de Melun and Camembert de Normandie are now protected).

AOP protects the cheese origin, history, traditional methods, and it’s relation to the natural geography and ‘terroir’; and also help market small farmers. Sounds good. The AOP ‘police’ can control many quality factors before they will award a label, plaque or engraved straw to grace any cheese. In some cases they protect traditions to the letter – for example Beaufort d’Alpage must be made 2000m up in the mountains, and produce their own rennet and culture, and Salers Traditional must be made with the milk from the ubiquitous but unproductive Salers cow (by Darwin’s theory it should have been extinct years ago!).

The level of protection varies massively: at its lowest it seems like just basic geographical limits, but higher levels involve stringent recipes (sometimes to the letter), some must be GMO free, others not, some say it has to be pasteurised, many don’t (you can’t find an unpasteurised Bleu de Causses; and you’ll struggle to find unpasteurised versions of Bleu d’Auvergne, Fourme D’Ambert, Ossau Iraty, Epoisses, Chabichou, Langres, Chaource, Mariolles and Pont l’Eveque).

Award of an AOP can give power to producers (you can only buy an Epoisses from four producers) and often allow them to charge a higher price. Quality can also suffer, as a product sells on the AOP name and producers begin to do just what is necessary. The product will often sell anyway thanks to the reputation of an AOP; this has led to a large variance in quality within each cheese AOP.

The recognition of AOP has in some cases led to big dairies controlling the market, pushing small producers out, or making it more cost effective for farmers to concentrate on producing the milk. This has led to a loss of farmhouse dairies: farm production is less than 8% of AOP cheeses

AOPs can also stifle innovation and change, as rigid rules hold back improvements, the ability to adapt and develop.

Others have become regimented as uniformity has swept across the board. The men in the black suits, the AOP ‘police’ and experts come from Paris to make farmers follow a recipe, often using the same cultures and rennet. In doing this they lose the nuances between recipes and farms. And after the cheese is produced the products often have to stay in their region of production for affinage. This means many experienced affineurs and cheese-mongers may receive the product too late to have a major affect on the quality and maturing of the product.

So where do I stand? AOP does protect history, the link with the terroir, traditions and origins, all great principles: no matter how close to Gouda it is, Gouda made in China shouldn’t be called Dutch Gouda (or perhaps even Gouda).

Yet where protection exists there is massive variance within it, good and bad. I’ve read in many a book “look for AOP”. My advice is never buy a cheese by any symbol or a name. Look for a great cheesemaker or a great cheesemonger, and a great taste. If you can’t taste it, walk away.

The Positives

Beaufort d’Alpage
The AOP ensures Beaufort d’Alpage (d’Alpage is the key bit!) is made to very traditional methods: one herd kept above 1500m (at Alpage in the mountains), only made in summer, the cows are never fed on silage, the cheese has to be made everyday with no holding or no chilling of milk, rennet and starters are homemade on the farm, traditional copper cauldrons are used and the cheese is hand dipped and kept in wooden moulds, all from a breed of cows which produce ideal milk for cheese. These factors are a like a wish list for making the best cheese, but are rarely, if ever, found elsewhere. Enforcing and protecting them by the AOP has kept the practices that would have fallen by the wayside (for example, I don’t know of anyone else who makes their own rennet). It makes each chalet that produces Beaufort d’Alpage truly unique and linked to the terroir.

Salers Traditional
With similar protection to Beaufort (made at summer pasture in alp age, with no silage, the use of wood and traditional methods) but also the enforced use of the Salers cow (which is what makes it Salers Traditional, not just regular Salers). The Salers cow gives amazingly rich milk. Yet each cow only gives 4 litres per day (compared to 30-40 litres from Holstein Friesians); they also will only give milk when their child is present (see Blog 8).

Chevrotin
With similar stringent controls as the other two, this cheese was awarded an AOP in 2002. Chevrotin was on the road to extinction; very few knew or were buying the cheese. The granting of an AOP halted and reversed the decline; the last few farmers gained from this nationwide recognition.

The Negatives

Manchego
The success of Manchego has meant most farmers in the AOP region have now turned to producing this cheese, or can send their milk to big dairies for a good price. The small individual, interesting and unique farmhouse cheeses from this region are no longer made. Manchego is a more successful product and has pushed them out of the market.

Salers
I spoke to a Salers producer who would love to partially skim the milk a little, at the end of the summer season (the end of the cows lactation and last of the summer grass means her milk is too fatty and this produces off flavours in the cheese). Yet the AOP does not allowed skimming the milk. The large Salers producers also gain from the handmade traditional methods here: much of the AOP Salers marketing shows these small farmhouses and their traditional methods; but the industrial diaries that gain from the association are pushing smaller producers out of the market on price.

Stilton
Up until 1989 Stilton could be unpasteurised. Then there was a scare with Listeria (it was later proved no relation to the cheese), and the last unpasteurised producer (Colston Bassett) was forced to pasteurise. The decree was passed in 1992 that Stilton HAD to be pasteurised, so now a producer (Stichelton) cannot call his cheese Stilton because it is unpasteurised.

Roquefort
Until the 70s Roquefort could be made anywhere in France, using milk from anywhere (as long as it was Lacune breed). So much for a product of the terroir; all it had to be, really, was aged in the caves for 14 days (and a further 2½ months in the region). Due to the fame of Roquefort, seven massive producers own all the production and have become a bit like a cartel, controlling the market. Also, as all the Roquefort made can be sold, they have less interest in quality (which is often why Roquefort is wet – to remove the water equals extra work and weight loss).

Who do you think brought you the AOCs, the IGPs, the PDOs and Italy’s DOC?

"The failure to protect Cheddar is perhaps the greatest mistake of trademark history” (Towt, 1911). Only 36 years after the very first trademark (Bass’ Red Triangle on their beer kegs), Cheddar makers had sprung up everywhere. The empire had grown; farmers, convicts and cheesemakers spread to the promised lands, taking with them their techniques and traditions of cheesemaking. And with them, the names of the methods and towns they originated from. Canadian Red Leicester, New Zealand Cheddar and Australian Cheshire would soon grace our shores, whilst the town of Cheddar even lost its last cheese producer.

Yet, the small town of Cheddar in Somerset lives on: it has regained a cheesemaker within the town; even now maturing his cheese in the famous Cheddar Gorge. But the name Cheddar can never again be specific to just one area, as it is ruled to have become generic. The same is true of Lancashire, Cheshire, Red Leicester, Brie, Camembert…

Luckily the UK managed to protect Stilton (retrospectively in 1966) with a trademark, so it can only be made to a traditional recipe within the counties of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Leicestershire.

This trademark now is enveloped in part of the EU protection system: Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) and Appellation d’Origine Protégée (AOP): a red circle with a gold border and stars, (the two acronyms mean the same thing). This designation has now taken precedence over existing systems throughout Europe: the AOC of France; the DOCs of Portugal and Italy, the DO Spain and the old PDO (same symbol in blue). Although you may still find these mentioned, they are being phased out and replaced by the universal PDO symbol.





The new legislation also saw the creation of the less strict IGP symbol (guarantees the product came from an area) and the TSG symbol (guarantees the product is made to traditional methods).

The PDO structure is based on that of the Appellation d’Origine Controlée of France. France first protected its cheese in 1407, when Charles VI stated the protection of Roquefort was necessary. And in 1666 the name Roquefort became legally bound only be used on cheeses of that region that had been aged in the famous caves of Combalou.

This AOC structure was designed to protect traditions and regional foods, so that foods and wines remain with their regional association, methods, local ingredients and influences. For example an Epoisses is a testament to that area – not merely a method of manufacture (as that can be reproduced anywhere), not even local raw materials, but climate, soil, geography, treatments, animal breeds, harvesting times and local environmental factors (such as the natural moulds in Roquefort’s Combalou caves). This is all summed up in the French word ‘terroir’.

However do be wary: PDO DOES NOT guarantee quality. On the basic level it just guarantees the product is produced to a basic way in a certain area (some PDOs are very strict, others very lenient). Some people choose a PDO or AOC cheese trusting it will be a great cheese; this is a mistake because there is massive variance between the products within this protection (often with the same name). I do not think of the PDO as an indicator of quality, just as an indicator of where the product will have been produced and to what style.

The relative merits and shortcomings of PDO are discussed in my next blog.


EU Protection Symbols and Details:

The PDO legislation applies throughout EU, but not to other countries. Many other countries do, however, agree to uphold the protection of many of these names (but not on all products).

Protected Designation of Origin (PDO/AOP)

Open to products which are produced, processed and prepared within a particular geographical area, and with features and characteristics which must be due to the geographical area, e.g. Stilton, Roquefort, Comté.

Protected Geographical Indication (PGI/IGP)

Open to products, which must be produced or processed or prepared within the geographical area and have a reputation, features or certain qualities attributable to that area. Not as strictly controlled or regulated as PDO, and generally not as recognized, e.g. Tomme de Savoie.

Traditional Speciality Guaranteed (TSG/STG)

Open to products which are traditional or have customary names and have a set of features which distinguish them from other similar products. These features must not be due to the geographical area the product is produced in, nor entirely based on technical advances in the method of production. This protects tradition rather than origin (and is in fact rarely applied for or used; although Mozzerella TSG does guarantee that it’s made in a traditional style).

Note the Swiss conform to these laws and have their own, similar symbols:

What time? St Nectaire.

When Guerin the farmer expressed doubt that I could get in up time to make it to his farm to watch them making cheese, I knew I would make it. He even re-enforced it when he exclaimed that he has to get up that early everyday. So a 2.30 am start on a Saturday had to be achieved; especially hard, as Friday is my mountain cheese-flipping day (the 40kg pieces of Beaufort, Comté and Gruyère). Groggy-eyed I drove all the way to a little village hidden between the lakes and extinct volcanoes of the Auvergne. I arrived just in time to watch the milking finish. I was there to watch St Nectaire being made, one of the most popular AOC (Appelation D’Origine Controllée) cheeses in France (close on the heels of Comté).


Cheeses have been made there since Roman times, and the cheese itself has been renowned since the Middle Ages. Produced in the winter when there wasn’t enough milk to make the big Cantal and Salers cheeses, and aged on local rye straw, it picked up it’s name rather strangely – not from the holy Saint Nectaire (there isn’t one!) – but because of Henry de Senectère, a local baron in favour with French king Louis XIV (he won some battles or something). Henry de Senectère famously promoted and pushed the cheeses of his region, so much so that Louis XIV regularly demanded cheeses from “Senectère”, and the name gradually transformed into St Nectaire!


Poor production techniques, and a location a long way from major cities meant the cheese fell out of fashion in the 18th Century (they even began using the local milk to make Gruyère copies instead). Later, however, when the young peasants enrolled to fight in the Napoleonic wars, they probably didn’t do so to improve their cheese production skills. But that’s what happened, and after marching and fighting (not too much – they were French after all) through Holland, they returned, with their heads full of the new ideas they’d seen. Consequently the quality of the cheese improved massively; so much so a committee quickly returned to Holland to see if it could learn even more.


St Nectaire’s production methods now honed, it re-found its fame as a national treasure and farmhouse production leapt. An AOC was awarded (one of the earliest AOCs and the first one to receive a special designation for farm production) so you would think that this cheese is well protected.


Yet good St Nectaire is increasingly hard to find, even with over 250 farms still making St Nectaire Fermier. The quality is widely variable and the good ones rarely leave the region!


This is made worse by the massive amount of St Nectaire Laitier production - a very different cheese from the Fermier: it is made in very sterilised conditions, often with pasteurised milk, (with none of the wild moulds that populate the milk). Without aging in the natural caves, the rind doesn’t develop like that of Fermier, and the cheese often tastes of nothing, or milk at best. Laitier is often the St Nectaire you’ll find in supermarkets around France. It looks clean – an orange even rind with it’s square green plaque. By contrast the Fermier version (with an oval green plaque) is damn unattractive – a potholed, dusty, green-grey rind, mottled with brown, orange and yellow. Yet, as the ugly duckling of the cheese world, it shouldn’t be judged on appearance: when you find a good one, it’ll have flavours and aromas that are complex, nutty, fruity, earthy and musty. A real rustic cheese – look at the contrast in the picture above left.

These Fermier cheeses are made straight after each milking, each day, by small farms in the isolated villages, using unpasteurised milk from their herd. My early start meant I’d just caught the milking. Rennet was added and we waited, patiently staring at the vat full of milk from the 90 cows. It set relatively fast, the curds were cut and whey was drained. Then the moulding process began: we stuffed the curds into moulds, then the cheese was then gently pressed, wrapped in cloth, salted, and given it it’s official plaque “St Nectaire Fermier”. The 55 cheeses we made that day were pressed for 12 hours, then passed through a drying room before ending up in their caves.


Not many farmers affine St Nectaire themselves, instead passing it onto the many affineurs in the area. Guerin is one exception. With the help of Hervé Mons they built a small facility to start the process off. This means the cheeses can take on a bit of local character for a month before they arrive at Hervé’s caves. It would be me that then finished the process off – another month or two of turning, brushing and wiping until Hervé decides it’s ready.


In the humid natural caves the cheeses are washed three times before being left to take on the natural moulds of the region – including the infamous Mucor, hated by other cheese makers. These unique conditions produce a cheese which is a little unique – gently pressed and populated by natural moulds, yet soft supple and creamy inside.


Yet, as I said, even to find a good St Nectaire Fermier is difficult*, and if you find one like this – you might want to keep it to yourself. There aren’t that many to go around.


Read more about AOC in

my next blog.

* The difficulty in finding good St Nectaire is because of the massive variance in each production. This AOC protection may have been one of the earliest, but always be wary of the sign AOC: the St Nectaire’s documentation stipulates it must be … well not much really. A basic recipe and geographic area. That’s about all. You can milk any breed of cow, any altitude, feed them on whatever you want (top quality pasture versus hay, even silage), use unpasteurised or pasteurised milk. Even the recipe controls and stipulates very few conditions.

This leads to a massive variance – imagine a prime cow (i.e. Abondance / Salers) grazing high on the finest mountain pasture in the Auvergne mountains, producing milk which is used unpasteurised, naturally fermented, then made into cheese by a farmer who has spent years and lots of money (invested in his diary, education and consultancy) to produce a top quality product.

Now think of an intensive production system, using a cow breed that gives lots of milk (yet poor quality), such as Friesian, fed only on hay and silage, kept indoors all year. Then the milk is pasteurised, and much less care given to the production and affinage.

Unfortunately, the difference in the price between the two products is going not going to be much, with one being much easier life but giving a much better profit margin. AOC can sometimes be nothing more than basic protection, not influencing quality – although the opposite is also true in some areas, for example Beaufort – more to come on AOC in my next blog.

Le Premier Affinage

I’m doing it! I’m having a shot at it myself! Some of you may know that I’ve made cheese before myself, using drainpipes, clamps and pans. Naturally I had a shot at ageing them. Yet the outcome was dubious at best – you could put windows out with my brie, my blue was more bitter than a pint of stout, and my goats cheese so runny it would come over to meet you. In fact, my only real success was with my home-grown cheddar. And I think that was because I left it with a friend to look after! Looking back, I now think I can identify where I went wrong with each cheese. So I decided it was time to have a shot at ageing a cheese at my home in France. Thankfully I have a cellar, and so it began. I chose Tarentais to start with because I could get hold of it fresh, it’s small (so mistakes won’t be too expensive) and quite forgiving – important, as my cellar is a little warmer and drier than is ideal. I wanted to age it differently from Mons, so tried a few alternative techniques to see how it turned out. And here it is. Le Premier Affinage Tout Seul (First Ageing On My Own). Well the geotrichium I was trying to cultivate died after the first week, but I battled on! It dried up a little more than I wanted, and, tasting it after 5 weeks, it was ok in texture and taste, very different to Mons. An interesting experiment, but I’ve still a bit to learn maybe…

It's been a while

Sorry for the dry spell in blogs up here; but i've been busy slicing and dicing Stilton in my new job at The Fine Cheese Co., Bath. However I have kept up-to-date at www.lesaffines.com. So there is some there to catch up on!

Cutting Loose in Thiers

Have you ever heard of Thiers? I hadn’t either. What about Laguiole? Maybe? Well, they’re both famous for knives. The rustic French goats herder (Yves, see Blog 3) had told us Thiers knives are Laguiole knives for normal people (in fact he said non-snobs).

Well, Thiers is close by so: “On y va”. Lots of knife shops, some good, some brilliant. It’s a lovely location, with the centre of the town on the hillside. The shop we were recommended (Chambriard) was a veritable knife heaven (although the classic Frenchman serving us refused to believe that stainless steel was invented in Sheffield, England). I quickly realised Thiers does make a lot of knives, you can tell, and the town has an industrial feel. The chefs’ knife brand Sabatier is also made there.

Laguiole by contrast is more touristy and more quaint, and it shows in the knives: Laguiole – elegant, Thiers – practical and functional (the difference in price is minimal, if anything). Although I gather the vast majority of Laguiole knives are nowadays made in Thiers (the style of knife originated in Laguiole but not a lot is currently made there).

And before you ask if I bought a knife in Thiers, of course I didn’t: my Dad’s from Sheffield - if I want a knife, I’ll get one from where stainless steel was invented!

But what about cheese? I hear you say. Well, on the way to Thiers I had to stop at a local laitière (dairy) who works very closely with Mons. In fact he only produces cheese and Mons affinés all of his products for him in the tunnel, before giving them back to him to sell when they’re ready. It was nice to understand the production of certain cheeses before they arrive at Mons. In particular the local cheese – Lavort – is made there then shipped to Mons where it is aged until the flavour, texture and appearance develop to their best. Lavort is a sheep's milk pressed cheese that is made in an interesting shape (reflecting the extinct volcanoes in the area). When they arrive at Mons they are barely out of the brine bath (which gives them their salt), over time their rind goes through several micro-bacterial changes to form the characteristic brown, tough dusty rind.

St Maure and St Maure

After tasting all 17 varieties of Paccard’s Reblochon, as well many other affineurs’ and producers’ too, I was ready for a wee break from the big flavoured cheeses of the Savoie. And what better than a nice, fresh, lactic St Maure goats cheese.

St Maure is the original goats log. Thin and long, made in the Loire (where many of France’s famous goat cheeses hail from); it is characteristic by the straw through the middle, used to hold the fragile curd together; by the time it reaches you it’s probably not necessary but when we are handling it, at the early stages of affinage it is indispensable. If you want to impress your friends, pull out the straw and show them inscribed on it in tiny laser writing “St Maure de Touraine” and the producer’s details.

We were having a bit of an experiment at Mons. We needed a bit more St Maure and we already took all of our farmers supply! So we got in several other producers, and aged their cheeses. Then we tasted - comparing against our current supplier as well as comparing our ageing with each producers ageing. And what a difference - there really is St Maure and St Maure! I find the same again and again - although two cheese can share the same name, AOC, region of origin, production techniques, the range in quality is amazing.

After a blind tasting, it was determined: our method of affinage and current supplier was best (of course!). Our cheese had a homogenous, smooth delicate paste and good developed flavour. The others could be a little bit dry, floury, clarty/sticky in the mouth. You can see our cheese in the picture - it's the one with a nice cream line under the skin, the other is a bit dry and floury.

Yet there was another current contender, close to ours but not quite. So what does Hervé do - sends that supplier off to work with our current farmer, to pick up his tricks and tips. Then Hervé visits, watches the production, make suggestions, tweaks. A month down the line and our second producer’s product has increased quality by leaps and bounds; good enough to put our name on it - a George Foreman special!

Lyon's Les Halles

My good friend Will Harper (Restaurant Manager at Liverpool’s Malmaison, that's him on the left) came to visit for the weekend. Being a man who likes and appreciates good food and wine, as well as the occasional Greggs (I know you do, too!), we decided to visit the gastronomic capital of the world, Lyon (and I thought it was Sheffield Indoor Market).

Well for two northerners who don’t like to show their emotions much… we were mildly impressed.

I’ve spent my time in many a market in France and England: indoor, outdoor, farmers’, foodie, from the cheap and cheerful to the gastronomic and fine – I could probably list it as one of my hobbies. Yet Lyon’s Les Halles indoor market is truly a food paradise. I was like a child in a sweetshop: marvelling at the ultra-fresh produce from the glistening fresh fish to the newly baked sparkling pastries. There were lots of permanent market stalls serving the best produce that France can offer – no wonder Lyon’s Les Halles has become somewhat of an institution to the locals.

And it has five cheesemongers. Five! I didn’t know where to start. So we had a glass of wine to calm down in one of the many side stalls serving produce straight from the market. We then attacked oysters, charcuterie, pastries and fine wine. A house re-mortgage, sore head and happy tummy later, we decided it was time to explore the rest of Lyon.

That was impressive too – as well as being beautiful and historic, this really is a town that revolves around food at every corner. We revolved around the beer. Then the wine. A lovely meal later, and we decided Lyon was definitely a place where we could eat (and drink) well.

But the gastronomic capital of the world? We weren’t too sure… now if they’d had Yorkshire pudding there...

Sheep!

Sheep! I hadn’t seen that many in these parts, and being a Cumbrian was starting to feel a little lost. But a short distance away from our caves is Richard, a humble farmer who gave up his job as an accountant to buy 30 hectares of land. Of that, his sheep (60) take up 20 hectares, 10 hectares is vineyard, and a little restaurant adjoins the farm, which he runs at only the weekend. A jack of all trades, and after tasting his cheese, his wine and his restaurant food - he’s a master of them all too!

I was here to help him make cheese for the day; as per usual I hoped to pick up the little tricks and trips that will help me on my cheesy quest. Only a tiny amount of cheese is made at Richard’s each day, and Mons pretty much takes it all – which is great for Richard as he can concentrate on the farm. One of the reasons external affineurs are important is that they allows the farmer to concentrate on the farm and increasing quality of production. Affineurs concentrate on ageing the product properly and take responsibility for the tricky task of selling the cheese. Selling the cheese takes a lot of time for a farmer – visiting farmers’ markets, searching for clients, delivering – all these take time that can be better spent on the farm!

The day starts early as the sheep are milked in his small parlour; they are of the Lacaune breed (identical to that used for Roquefort) – their milk is of very high quality and a great flavour, which comes through in the cheese. Richard doesn’t have to add very much salt at all to bring out the flavour. After milking we put the sheep back in the fields and set about adding the ferment and rennet. Then yesterday’s cheeses were removed from their moulds, salted and set to dry. The newly set curd was moulded and I was finished for the day (Richard was off to tend the vines and sheep). Easy peasy!

But that’s only because he has this technique honed down, and I was working with a man who definitely knows his land and his animals. We made one of the last batches of the year: the sheep will soon stop producing milk (breeding up until lambing) for 5-6 months. All sheep’s milk cheeses are seasonal like this. Many producers, however, freeze the milk (or keep the cheeses at really low temperatures) to have cheeses out of season – be wary of these cheeses: their flavour and texture is much poorer. Hervé sent a load back to one producer this week as we could tell it was frozen milk when it arrived: it simply doesn’t age, taste and feel the same.

In Search of Reblochon

Reblochon is a very ancient cheese (13th century), but not well-known for many years, and is still not that famous within the UK. Its availability and popularity comes and goes with the occasional celebrity chef’s recipes, but it is rarely, if ever, found on a cheeseboard, even in France. One of the reasons could perhaps be because the majority (80%) is made in creameries rather than on a farm (fermier) – although this has the same velvety texture, the flavour is often plain, un-complex and rather like milk (it has a short coagulation time and affinage, so relies heavily on the rich milk flavours). Even with the fermier cheeses (discernible by the green casein plaque and green label on the packaging) it is still hard to find a magnificent one outside Savoie - the Savoyards like to keep them for themselves!

For many years Reblochon was in fact kept a secret. Sorry to all those who know the story, but for those that don’t, the farmers used only to partly milk their cows on the day when stewards came to measure their yield and determine the tax to be paid. The resulting withheld milk (which also happens to be richer) would then be milked from the cow and transformed into a cheese – ‘lait de reblocher’ means ‘withheld milk’. This cheese-making had to be fast - hence the fabrication immediately after milking, heavy use of rennet, short coagulation time and quick ripening by washing and ageing at a high temperature.

Those that know Reblochon often know it because of the French dish - Tartiflette. And it isn’t often that Reblochon is mentioned without Tartiflette cropping up in the same sentence. In fact Tartiflette was invented only recently (in the eighties) by the Syndicat Interprofessionnel du Reblochon in order to sell and popularise Reblochon. Yet this was a double-edged sword – the reputation of Reblochon runs now alongside the dish and the cheese is rarely recognised on its own for the quality, smooth, unctuous beast it can be. I wanted to find that cheese!

Setting off from Thones, I headed up into the mountains of Aravis. At 1300m, I thought I had got high enough and I saw a sign for a farm that made Reblochon, so popped in. No one was around. I asked a neighbour if they made cheese there. He looked at me gone out. In the summer? Of course not - go higher! So half an hour of winding roads later I reached the Col de la Croix Fry. From there it was on foot up winding mountain trails till I reached the Plateau de Beauregard. At last, here they were: farms a plenty, cows in the pasture with their bells dinging and donging, playing the tune of the mountains. Let the tasting begin! Several farms and Reblochons later I was just about to give up (they were great, but not that great). Then - bang! I found it! That flavour, texture and smell I was looking for. Now to quiz the makers: production techniques, sales and, most importantly, affinage.

But when it came to how they aged their cheese the same name cropped up - Paccard of Manigod. Well it just so happened their 20th anniversary of being affineurs of Reblochon was that night, so I squeezed my way in to the celebrations.

And what a night. We started by tasting each of the products from each of the farms Paccard work with (17 Reblochons anyone?) – an amazing array of different distinct flavours. The quality was fantastic in every one, although of course I naturally had my favourites. And yes, they know how to affine the others too: their Beaufort, Chevrotin, Abondance, Bleu de Termingnon and Tommes were equally fantastic.

Then the celebration meal: if you could write a list of who’s who in affinage and top quality cheese, they were there – Bernard Anthony, Van Tricht, Androuet; as well as the twenty-odd farms that Paccard work with. Jean-Francois, one of the family, very kindly invited me up into the mountains early the next day to watch the milking and production of Reblochon and Abondance, before giving me a tour and explaining their process of affinage for all of their products – very complex - various rooms, moving, washing, temperatures, wrapping and of course – the touch (see my later blog - Tools of the Affineur).

As Joseph Paccard said in his speech at the end of the night: Reblochon is a cheese that should not only be famous for Tartiflette - it should be on the best cheeseboards in France. And after tasting his - I have to agree: his Reblochon is ‘Top!’

The Great Affineurs of the Savoie

Affinage. That buzzword, which I seem to keep going on about (it is why I’m in France after all). Hervé Mons is considered one of the best affineurs in the World, and that is why I’m here with him to improve upon my affinage craft. However, there are other affineurs out there too, although many of them specialise in the products of their own region. As affinage is such a subjective subject, with everyone using their own tools, tricks, techniques, caves and other idiosyncrasies, I thought it would make sense to visit a few of the other affineurs to pick up what I can from them!

First stop - Savoie! The Savoie is an amazingly beautiful region in France, with 93% of its terrain classified ‘mountainous’. But, more importantly it is home to some of my favourite, and the world’s best, cheese: Beaufort, Abondance, Reblochon, Bleu de Termignon, Chevrotin, Tarentais, as well as numerous Tommes (de Savoie, de Roche, de Crayeuse, de Bauges - every farm here makes their own style).

And although there are numerous dairies here too, the beauty of the cheese in the Savoie is that much is made in high alpine farms with maybe just 30 animals and tiny production (look out for Beaufort Alpage, Reblochon with a green sticker, as well as any Chevrotin, Tarentais and Bleu de Termignon). The high mountain pastures give fantastic floral diversity; consequently the milk of the cows and goats here is rich, floral and – by gum – delicious! This passes straight through to the cheese and that’s why it has such flavour.

All these small farms, at dizzy altitudes (1500m+), need someone to fetch the cheeses, age them and take them to market. That’s where the affineurs step in: Savoie is home to some big names in the affinage world.

My first stop was Denis Provent, Chambery, retailer of all Savoie cheese delicacies, he has recently come to fame for his Tarentais cheese. Only 2 producers of this relatively rare cheese exist, and its become a buzzword among cheese connoisseurs at the moment; it’s very interesting because it’s characteristics change completely with age (affinage), and eating three different ages is like eating three completely different cheeses. Yet unlike many other cheeses, all the different ages are fantastic and it’s hard to choose a peak in its life! So I visited his caves, and had a chat about his methods of affinage, picking his brain where I could! He has six caves, all located underground – old tunnels, ice sheds, natural caves – with many cheeses sitting there quite contentedly.

Next stop: Schmidhauser. A much bigger, commercial affair. Large, purpose-built caves (again with Hervé’s help – he pops up everywhere!), to age masses upon masses of cheese. That being said, the quality is good, and their specialities are particularly interesting - Tomme de Crayeuse and Chartreuex. Their master of ceremonies gave me a tour and a taste, before taking me off to visit one of his dairies making Tomme de Savoie.

My trip next takes me to Farto de Thones, a bit further up the mountain, (again one of Hervé’s friends - who isn’t?). They are actually a co-operative and started by working with fermier (farm) Reblochon producers up in the mountains, ageing their products, and taking care of all the selling and marketing. This is still the lions’ share of their business, yet now they also make and affiné other Savoie delicacies. Their tunnels are massive and almost as impressive as Schmidhauser’s. Yet again, a few more tips: different ways of working, different ideas. With these Savoie cheeses, although all these affineurs carry the same cheeses by name, the slight differences in techniques of production and affinage result in a remarkable diversity: no two Abondances, Beauforts, and Reblochons are really the same. Each affineur has his own expertise.

Yet, after all my time in France I was still to find a Reblochon that would blow me away. They were great here, but not especially better than other Reblochon I had tasted before: a velvety texture, a strong assertive smell and creamy, buttery, floral, complex flavour, or some that were a bit like eating a rare tender rib-eye steak. I was looking for that special Reblochon – a cheese that would make me think, “Yes! I’m in the right trade.”

So I asked around and all the locals said just one word – “Paccard”. Go up into the mountains, they said. So off I went, in my search of that Reblochon.

To be continued…

Comté and Affinage

A wee bit more science for you, on the famous French cheese of Comté (Gruyère style). Appellation controlled, the production and first four months of affinage happen in the Franche-Comte region of France. It then arrives with us at Mons.

To show you how different affinage can affect the final flavour can be seen very clearly with two examples we have in the cave at the moment. One has been kept at about 7°-8°C, the other 12°-14°C. The cheese at the lower temperature is actually older, but the other cheese has far more flavour. The reason for this is the temperature; the lower temperature is perfect for protein breakdown but is too low for propionic fermentation, which is essential to fully develop the flavour of Comté. The warmer cheese was kept at the lower temperature for the first month of its life then put at a higher temperature to allow the propionic bacteria to develop the flavour, leading to a more rounded, complex final taste.

The reason why Hervé Mons takes the cheeses as young as he can (four months) rather than leave it with the affineurs in the area, is so he can control this process. And he cannot just take any cheese. Each day’s production from each farm is tasted so we can determine which will age the best to develop the finest flavours – we then take that whole batch. As Mons age at higher temperatures than most, several farms’ production of Comté age too fast because of the types of ferment they use and their individual production process, so we also have to know that before we choose.

Then the cheese arrives. It’s weighed and put in the cave. At Mons each cheese is turned and dealt with individually by hand, rather than by machine. Although more expensive (and back breaking!), it means that instead of treating every cheese the same, we can react to each cheese as it develops differently and at different speeds. This week for the same batch of Comté, some were just turned, others brushed, some washed with a special solution, some floured and a few dry-salted and wiped, according to how they were developing – leading to a more consistent higher quality.

Now, imagine this is one example of over 150 cheeses we affine here, that’s some knowledge you have to got to have – no wonder being an affineur is a trade for life! Although some techniques are similar; every cheese is in reality treated differently to bring out its best flavour; a knowledge and skill that I’m slowly picking up