Cheese makers in the Savoie and Haute-Savoie in eastern France produce some of the best cheese in the world. Magnificent hard cheeses, weighting between 35kg and 100kg, such as Beaufort, Emmental, and Comté as well as much smaller, individual cheeses, Reblochon de Savoie and Chevrotin des Aravis.
The Aravis is a high mountain range, running from the eastern edge of the Haute-Savoie to the northern borders of the Savoie. In the centre of the Aravis is the Thônes valley, where farmers and cheese makers have made cheese since the 14th century, when the local herdsmen were taxed by the landowners according to how much milk they produced. In order to escape paying the full tax on his cows, the herdsman would always leave some milk in the cow’s udder. One the taxman had gone, and the cows were relieved from their remaining milk, cheese was made. This second milking was known as reblocher, meaning “pinching the udder again”, hence the cheese was named Reblochon. Novel stories like this are common for almost all French cheeses, which makes them so historic and interesting.
Today, hundreds of small scale cheese makers make Reblochon up and down the Thônes valley, sometime using milk from herds of just a few cows. Milk fresh from the cows is kept warm and very slowly acidified. Calves rennet is stirred in and once the curd is set, it is cut into small cubes and stirred in the whey before being scooped into muslin lined moulds and weighed with a metal disc. This ensures the cheeses are close textured and evenly shaped. At the point, the producer lays a small casein label on top of the cheese. Look out for this when buying Reblochon. Green labels identify a fermier cheese, made by hand, using milk from a single herd. Red labels are applied to industrial cheeses made on a larger scale in dairies using milk collected from numerous farms.
Once the cheeses have been dipped in brine made from salt and whey, the cheese maker sells his cheeses on to the local affineur, who looks after the cheeses for the next 5 weeks. Each affineur has his own secret methods of transforming the fresh, white curd into the aromatic finished cheese. He will keep the cheeses in cellars or caves deep in the mountain side where they will sit on spruce-wood shelving, and be repeatedly wiped with a sponge soaked in brine. On these shelves, surrounded by cool, still air, the cheeses grow delicate rinds. Pink, orange, grey and white moulds, yeast and bacteria settle on the cheese and break the firm, sweet curd down to a creamy, almost melting cheese.
When you cut open a perfectly ripened Reblochon, the interior should hold itself together, but begin to run as the cheese warms up. The flavours are buttery and rich with floral, nutty qualities. Sometimes the cheese is quite earthy and farmy, but is always an absolute pleasure.
Chevrotin des Aravis is made in exactly the same method as Reblochon, but uses milk from local goat herds which roam the herb filled, rockier pastures above where the cows graze. Chevrotin are typically half the size of Reblochon, but has the same creamy texture.
Stichelton, the raw milk blue cheese from Nottinghamshire. Here, the rind has a multitude of yeast, moulds and bacteria on the rind. Firstly yeasts - Geotrichum reduce the surface acidity to create a hosptiable environment from the bacteria - Brevibacterium Linens to grow, which is followed by the white mould Penicillium Candidum...whilst inside, blue Penicillium Roqueforti blooms when the cheese is pierced.
