Pechegos: a Tarn valley goat's cheese



Pechegos - washed rind goat's cheese from the Tarn valley

 The past few days have been turning increasing autumnal, with the early morning air being cold enough to want a scarf.
Blackberries have ripened, plums are around by the bucket load -tender Victorias, rich and delicious Opals, and the first, small damsons.
Apples too, pink fleshed Discoverys are now joined by Falstaff, Worcester and Blenheim Oranages at the farmers' market. 
It will still be a good month until the real glut of apples hits, joined by quinces, game, pumpkins, root vegetables and spice. 
When it begins to get a little colder, as far as cheese is concerned, I like to eat something robust. More earthy, savoury and meaty than the creamy, delicate cheeses of warm summer days.
Something with a washed rind and big, bold flavours.
Pechegos was the perfect cheese this week, a washed rind cheese from the Tarn valley in the Languedoc-Roussillon, made using raw goat's milk from local herds grazing the limestone hillsides of the Tarn.
Like the famous Mont d'Or (or Vacherin if you prefer), this cheese is encased in a band of spruce, which imparts a sappy flavour of the forest to the cheese, and holds together the soft, melting paste.
Pechegos is ripened for 6-12 weeks, so cheeses being sold now will have been made with milk from the herb rich pasture of mid-summer, resulting in cheeses with deep, full flavours. 
Over the ripening period, Pechegos is washed in brine, to encourage the development of Brevibacterium linens, giving the cheese a moist, sticky, orange rind and the typically meaty flavours of a washed rind cheese.
The finished cheese is quite unlike any traditional French goat's milk cheeses - soft, almost runny, rich and buttery, bold, meaty flavours, not unlike wild mushrooms or truffles.
Made by a sole producer, Le Pic (a small co-operative producing a range of both modern and traditional style cheeses), Pechego is seasonally available from Paxton and Whitfield, La Fromagerie and Androuet.


Bouchette cendree, a small, ashed
goat's cheese from fromagerie Le Pic.