“A meal without cheese is like a day without sunshine” – French proverb
"Comment
voulez-vous gouverner un pays qui a deux cent quarante-six variétés de fromage?"
(How can you govern a country which has two hundred and forty-six varieties of
cheese?) – French President Charles de Gaulle, 1962.
Street Market "Fromager"
France can be traced back to the Iron Age (approx.
1200 BC – 700 AD) when inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area, now
known as Metropolitan France, was annexed in 51 BC by the Roman Empire, which
was held Gaul until 486 AD when the Germanic Franks conquered the region and
formed the Kingdom of France. In the Late Middle Ages, after its’ victory in
the Hundred Years’ War (1337 – 1453), France emerged as a major European power.
During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a global colonial empire
was established, which by the 20th century would be the second
largest in the world. (reference: Wikipedia)
Tradition – (noun). “ 1. the handing down of
statements, beliefs, legends, customs, information, etc., from generation to
generation, especially by word of mouth or by practice, 2. something that is
handed down, 3. a long-established or inherited way of thinking or acting, 4. a
continuing pattern of culture beliefs or practices, 5. a customary or characteristic
method or manner” (reference: Dictionary.com)
There are unwritten, unspoken rules –
traditions – regarding French cheese etiquette. Le fromage – its consumption is one of the “Big 3”, along with pain (bread – think baguette) and vin (wine),
cultural aspects that define ‘the French’.
According to a 2013 report by the
International Dairy Federation, the French eat – per person – 25.9 kg of cheese
per year (nearly half a kilogram per week), the Americans eat 15.4 kg and the
British 11.6 kg.
There’s a certain etiquette (tradition) to
be observed when serving and eating cheese in France (taken from an article in The
Local):
1. Cheese is not an appetizer. First of all,
serving cheese as an appetizer before dinner like Americans often do is unheard
of in France. And you won't see it on a cocktail stick with a pickled onion and
tomato. In fact serving cheese at any time of the day or night is a non non (no-no). Just stick to its’
allotted slot in a meal which is....
2. Before dessert. In the UK,
finishing a meal with cheese and grapes is quite common, but in France they
wouldn't finish a meal with cheese and their reasoning is sound. Just think how
smelly some of their most famous fromages
are. Imagine all your dinner guests continuing to debate the invasion of
English into the French language with deathly Camembert breath. They'd be laid out on the floor. That is why the
French always follow cheese with some kind of dessert, which could even be
grapes. So don't serve them together.
3. Not a cracker in sight. The French will
think you're crackers, if you serve the cheese with anything other than bread.
Although it doesn't always have to be baguette.
They believe that crackers take away from the taste of the cheese. So keep your
selection box well-hidden for when you're on your own.
4. Save a bottle of red. It would be a major
faux pas if you had gone through all
your vin rouge and had no red left
for the cheese course. In general red wine is served with cheese in France,
though not always. What wine to pair with what cheese is a whole new subject
that can be saved for another rainy day, but often pairing a wine with a cheese
from the same region is one way to do it. Another is just to experiment, though
the French tend to stick to what they know, which is red.
5. Like wine, cheese needs to breathe. Cheese that has
been cooped up in its wrapping in the fridge is not immediately ready to be
eaten. Instead, take out the cheese and prepare it on a plate at least an hour
before it’s meant to be eaten. Room temperature is where those delicious aromas
and flavors really thrive. 6. Odd is better than even. If you’re the one putting together the cheese plate, keep in mind that there should always be an odd number of cheeses, for aesthetic purposes. And in order to maintain balance in the universe, there should be a minimum of three varieties: a soft cheese, a hard cheese, and one blue or goat cheese.
7. Cutting the cheese. Cutting French cheese, one of the most crucial aspects of cheese behavior, is a matter of geometry and manners. There is a right way and a wrong way, and it all depends on the shape.
For round cheeses, it’s pretty straightforward: pie slices, about the thickness of a pencil. For log-shaped goat cheese, go for parallel slices. For square cheeses, triangles are the way to go. For a rectangular cheese like Comté, just cut slices parallel to the rind. Those pyramid-shaped cheeses should be cut into one slice and then halved again. For wedges of Brie, don’t cut off “the nose” — the tip of the cheese closest to the center that holds the most flavor. Instead cut along the side of the wedge so that others can have a taste of the most flavorful part. The same goes for Roquefort. If you take all the flavorsome mold in the middle, it will bring a swift end to the entente cordiale. Cut in a diagonal shape, so you get a lot of the side and just a little of the middle.
You might wonder why your host wouldn’t pre-slice the cheese to save foreign guests the headache and panic of wondering how to do it, but that would be compromising the moisture and flavor of the cheese, an obvious faux pas.
Additionally, never – never take more than 3 pieces of cheese no matter how many different types of cheese are on the serving platter.
8. Small piece of bread, small piece of cheese. Don’t go plopping a whole wedge of cheese on a hunk of bread like some kind of savage. Think small piece of bread, small piece of cheese. Just gently place the morsel of cheese on the bite-sized morsel of baguette. And resist the urge to spread the cheese — it’s not Nutella.
9. Mildest to strongest. When eating your
cheese, start with a milder one and work your way up to the smelliest of the
bunch. For example: start with Brie,
move on to the goat cheese, then the blue, then the Camembert. That way your taste buds will still be able to
appreciate the mild Brie as well as
the stinky Camembert.
10. Don’t mix the cheeses. For the love of all
things cheesy, if there’s no designated knife for each fromage, wipe the knife off on a piece of bread when you’re moving
from cheese to cheese. Nobody likes cheese cross-contamination.11. To rind or not to rind? Actually, even French people can’t seem to agree on whether or not to consume the croûte, so you (probably) won’t embarrass yourself either way. If you want to eat the rind, go ahead and eat it. And if you don’t, that’s fine too. Follow your heart or your stomach.
12. Don’t you dare store cheese in plastic wrap. Storing it in plastic wrap will suffocate that poor cheese. The best way to keep cheese fresh is to keep it in a cheese bag (what, you don’t have any cheese bags?) which allows the cheese to breathe and regular humidity. If you don’t have any cheese bags around, you can resort to wrapping the leftover cheese in wax paper and then loosely in plastic wrap.
So
there you have it, the rules of fromage.
There are three types of fromage – cow, goat and sheep –
classified under four categories:
·
Fermier: a farmhouse
cheese, which is produced on the farm where the milk is produced.
·
Artisanal: a producer
producing cheese in relatively small quantities using milk from their own farm,
but may also purchase milk from local farms.
·
Coopérative: a dairy with local
milk producers in an area that have joined to produce cheese. In larger coopératives quantities of cheese
produced may be relatively large, akin to some industriel producers (many may be classed as factory-made).
·
Industriel: a factory-made
cheese from milk sourced locally or regionally, perhaps all over France.
Traditionally, there are from 350 to 450
distinct types of French cheese grouped into eight categories 'les huit familles de fromage' (the
eight families of cheese). There can be many varieties within each type of cheese,
leading some to claim closer to 1,000 different types of French cheese. Fifty-six cheeses are classified, protected,
and regulated under French law. Below is information regarding three top French cheeses – and following rule 6 above – a soft cheese, a hard cheese, and a ‘blue’ cheese.
Camembert
Camembert is a soft, creamy, surface-ripened cow's milk
cheese. It was first made in the late 18th century at Camembert, Normandy in
northern France. "Camembert de
Normandie" is required by law to be made only with unpasteurized milk from
"Vaches Normandes" cows.
The cheese is made by inoculating warmed
milk with mesophilic bacteria, then adding rennet and allowing the mixture to
coagulate. The curd is then cut into roughly 1 cm (1/2 inch) cubes, salted, and
transferred to low cylindrical camembert molds. The molds are turned every six
to twelve hours to allow the whey to drain evenly from the cut curds; after 48
hours, each mold contains a flat, cylindrical, solid cheese mass weighing
generally 250 grams (about 9 oz). At this point the fresh cheese is hard,
crumbly, and bland.The surface of each cheese is then sprayed with an aqueous suspension of the mold Penicillium camemberti, and the cheeses are left to ripen for a legally required minimum of three weeks. This affinage produces the distinctive bloomy, edible rind and creamy interior texture characteristic of the cheese. Once the cheeses are sufficiently ripe, they are wrapped in paper and may be placed in wooden boxes for transport.
Comte
Fresh from the farm, milk is poured into large copper vats where it is gently warmed. Each cheese requires up to 600 litres (160 US gal) of milk. Rennet is added, causing the milk to coagulate. The curds are then cut into tiny white grains that are the size of rice or wheat which are then stirred before being heated again for around 30 minutes. The contents are then placed into molds and the whey is pressed out. After several hours the mold is opened and left to mature in cellars, first for a few weeks at the dairy, and then over several months elsewhere.
The manufacture of Comté has been controlled by AOC regulations since it became one of the first cheeses to receive AOC recognition in 1958, with full regulations introduced in 1976. The AOC regulations for Comté prescribe:
·
Only
milk from Montbéliarde or French Simmental cows (or cross breeds of the
two) is permitted.
·
There
must be no more than 1.3 cows per hectare of pasture.
·
Fertilization
of pasture is limited, and cows may only be fed fresh, natural feed, with no
silage.
·
The
milk must be transported to the site of production immediately after milking.
·
Renneting
must be carried out within a stipulated time after milking, according to the
storage temperature of the milk.
·
The
milk must be used raw. Only one heating of the milk may occur, and that must be
during renneting. It may be heated to no more than 40 °C (104 °F).
·
Salt
may only be applied directly to the surface of the cheese.
·
A
casein label containing the date of production must be attached to the side of
the cheese, and maturing must continue for at least four months.
·
No
grated cheese may be sold under the Comté
name.
Roquefort
The mold that gives Roquefort its distinctive character (Penicillium roqueforti) is found in the soil of the local caves. Traditionally, the cheesemakers extracted it by leaving bread in the caves for six to eight weeks until it was consumed by the mold. The interior of the bread was then dried to produce a powder. In modern times, the mold can be grown in a laboratory, which allows for greater consistency. The mold may either be added to the curd or introduced as an aerosol through holes poked in the rind.
Roquefort is made entirely from the milk of the Lacaune, Manech and Basco-Béarnaise breeds of sheep. The cheese is produced throughout the département of Aveyron and part of the nearby départements of Aude, Lozère, Gard, Hérault and Tarn.
The regulations that govern the production of Roquefort have been laid down over a number of decrees by the INAO. These include:
·
All
milk used must be delivered at least 20 days after lambing has taken place.
·
The
sheep must be on pasture, whenever possible, in an area including most of Aveyron and parts of neighboring départements. At least 3/4 of any grain
or fodder fed must come from the area.
·
The
milk must be whole, raw (not heated above 34 °C; 93.2 °F), and unfiltered
except to remove macroscopic particles.
·
The
addition of rennet must occur within 48 hours of milking.
·
The
Penicillium roqueforti used in the production must be produced in France from
the natural caves of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon.
·
The
salting process must be performed using dry salt.
·
The
whole process of maturation, cutting, packaging and refrigeration of the cheese
must take place in the commune of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon.
As of 2009, there are seven Roquefort producers. Around three
million cheeses were made in 2005 (18,830 tons) making it, after Comté, France's second most popular
cheese.
(reference: Wikipedia)
Street Market "Fromager"
