A North Wind Is Preferred For Cheesemaking; South Wind From The Sea Is Best For Maturing

I.  Does this great cheese, so glorious at best, needbutter?  It has been a deplorable butcommon custom in France to mix butterwith Roquefort, making a spread of it. In my Breton guise, as if hailing from the banks of the great RiverRance), I am used to eating butter under cheese (like the Normans), but mixingit, never. It spoils both.  As a possiblechild of Rouergat ancestry (near Roquefort there is the “le tout petit ruisseau nommé Rance," as another Rouergat describedit to me), I regard butter as quite unnecessary with any Roquefort I choose toeat; but some demand it to take the edge off such cheeses as the sharperalso-rans of the Gault-Milau race.

Roquefort

          As for wine, let any who have felt uneasy when accompanyingRoquefort with red wine other than port try sweet or very fruity drier whitewines.  Chateau d'Yquem is the perfect butextravagant counsel of some great gourmets. Closer to hand, and more reasonable, are Périgord’s Montbazillac,Banyuls and Rivesaltes rancis.  InEngland a sweet old dark ale or barley wine would do well, especially out ofdoors.

A fleurine in a Roquefort cave.   It is through the complex system of interconnected cracks or faults known as fleurines that the air runs through theRoquefort caves, maintaining constant conditions of wetness (95-99%) and temperature (7-11°C).

II. All the laiteries belongto the Roquefort caveproprietors.  Weather conditions arecharted daily, together with detailed timings of each stage of cheesemaking,and the amount of rennet and pennicilliumused.   Even the wind direction istested, by the wet-finger method, and recorded. A north wind is preferred forcheesemaking because it is cooling for the dairy; traditionally making might“wait for the wind.”  South wind from thesea is best for maturing, being the only one to penetrate the fleurines and create the necessarymovement of moisture and spores throughout the caves.  

A Roquefort cave

          Monsieur AlbertAlric told me that Papillon laiterieskeep similar charts and pointed out that if a customer complains and gives thedate and vat of marking, it is possible to trace the conditions in which theparticular cheese was made and all the details of its making to see whether thefault lay with the laiterie or the caves.   Dairy workers are paid for the whole year,although they do not have to work in the period when no milk is beingcollected.

A Roquefort laiterie 

          “There are eight stories below us,” Monsieur Laur said as weleft his office and started descending the old staircase down into the caves.   The servants’ staircase, it might be called,for people are only here to serve; the cheeses are the masters for whom thelift is reserved.  It is salutary tothink back to the days when they had to be carried up and down the stairs.Through the dimness, giving way to darkness away from the stair-shaft, only thecheeses seem to give off light against the deep, damp-saturated oaken uprightsand shelves.  Chill moisture is theconstant factor, together with the invisible spores, the two combining tocreate and nourish a greasy floor and stair covering (take sensible, non-slipshoes and wooly clothing, and do not dig your heels in).  On the south wall the naked rock is split bythe irregular fleurines, greatsinister cracks occasionally letting through the merest gleam from an upper,outer world.

1929 Château d’Yquem – 5 * -- Michael Broadbent

"A deep, rich amber, some [bottles] a rose tinted tawny; peaches and cream ride uppermost, also apricots, peeled sultanas, sometimes slightly chocolatey, always richly penetrating." 

"The perfect butextravagant counsel." 

Live a little, I say (hopefully).  The end is near.  If not, live a little (I say hopefully). Seana (below) clearly wants to.

From Patrick Rance:  The French Cheese Book.  Macmillan, London, 1989.   

Galettes Briardes

Aromatic, crusty Brie-flavoured biscuits.

For 4

200 g (7 oz) ripe Brie

70 g (2 ½ oz) unsaltedbutter, diced

2 egg yolks

pinch salt

pinch freshly groundwhite pepper

pinch freshly gratednutmeg

250 g ((9 oz) plainwhite flour

1 tbsp milk

Trim the cheese of any hard or brown bits of rind.  Mash it in a mixing bowl, add the butter, eggyolks, salt pepper and nutmeg, and blend. Gradually add the flour and knead everything together until a ratherstiff, smooth dough is obtained.  Ifnecessary add a few drops of cold water. Wrap in aluminum foil and chill for 1 hour.

         On a lightlyfloured surface, roll out about 6 mm (1/4 in thick   Cut serrated rounds of about 7 cm (3 in) indiameter.  Arrange on lightly oiledbaking sheets, score lightly in a criss-cross pattern with a fork, brush withmilk and bake in a fairly hot oven (190 C/375 F/gas mark 5) for about 15-20minutes or until golden brown.  Cool on arack.

From:  Peter Graham, Classic Cheese Cookery.  London, Penguin, 1988 

Home-made

Store-bought 



See also:  The Varieties of Brie (Link)

The Varieties of Brie (From The French Cheese Book)

 Major Patrick Rance

Brie à la Chiffe

Brie à la Loque

Brie au Poivre

Brie  Bleu

Brie d’Amateur

Brie de la Poste aux Chevaux de Meaux

Brie de Maquelines

Brie de Maquin

Brie de Meaux

Brie de Melun

Brie de Melun Bleu

Brie de Melun Frais

Brie de Montereau, Ville Saint Jacques

Brie de Montereau Bleu

Brie de Montfort

Brie de Nangis

Brie-en-pot

Brie de Provins

Brie de Valois

Brie Façon Coulommiers

Brie Petit Moule

Fromage à la Pie (Coulommier Frais)

Brie Fermier

Brie Laitier

Brie Industriel

Brie Truffé

From Patrick Rance:  The French Cheese Book.  Macmillan, London, 1989.    

NOTE:  Reading through Patrick Rance's vivid descriptions of the varieties of Brie, I can happily report that all of them seem interesting enough and worth trying with the exception of the penultimate entry, Brie Industriel, about which Rance writes: "There is a class of industriel cheese made from lait pasturisé standardisé which the cheesemaker virtually never sets eyes on.  [It] is only of interest to Brie lovers as a curiosity, or a candidate for the Chamber of Horrors."  Regarding Brie Truffé, Rance notes that M. Paul Corcellat of Paris will prepare this cheese to order.  It sounds fabulous and like a real September 2011 pick-me-up.

The so-called "black" Brie -- aged Brie de Meaux

Please note Major Rance's Monocle (Link).

This post is dedicated to Kevin Ayers in southwest France.

See also: Galettes Briardes (Link)

The Disappearance of the Transhumance (Patrick Rance)

        This brings us to the Vivarais, a beautiful mountain pays. On its eastern flank crags and cliff-crested shale slopes tower over therivage along the Rhone.  The south-east, between the Ardeche and theRhone, more like Provence, is called Ardeche a l’Huile. This was Helvie inRoman times, later ruled, like Velay, sovereign-bishops, and came to the Frenchcrown in 1229. It was represented in the Etats du Languedoc  from the fourteenth century, but I hope itsmodern inhabitants will excuse me for regarding it as a natural companion inits mountains and its cheeses to Velay, Forez, and Auvergne.

        This century has seen decline and depopulation, and latterlyeven the disappearance of the transhumance*.  The irregular charm of the old stonebuildings has too often been hidden behind the dirty battledress of cement, orthe hideous stark suburbanism of harl and rough-cast.  What remains of Vivarais’ past to delight theeye is the occasional handsome group of farm buildings, and nature itself,sometimes growing over the abandoned terraces of the mountain sides, where theexceptional tiny, high vineyard yet persists. Higher still, castles can be indistinguishable from crags, crags fromcastles.  Far below are the workingvineyards of today, producing wines which I have found pleasant with pasta andcheese.   On the Rhone south of Valence,La Voulte-sur-Rhone on N86 offers a Friday market before you turn west on D-20for Saint-Laurent-du-Pape, where there is an organic goat farm.  D120 provides one route up into Picodoncountry, with a farm at Gluiras by the way, before Pont de Chervil.  Further north and west are a farm atSaint-Basile, and Lamastre, where all kinds of chevres and some mi-chevres areavailable.

From:  Patrick Rance, The French Cheese Book.  London, Macmillan, 1989

* "Transhumance is the seasonal movement of people with their livestock over relatively short distances, typically to higher pastures in summer and to lower valleys in winter. Herders have a permanent home, typically in valleys. Only the herds travel, with the people necessary to tend them."