Behind Every Famous French Cheese Is A Cow, Goat, Or Lamb

I love seeing all the different cows, goats, and sheep at the Salon de L’Agriculture and I thought that I would introduce you to some who are behind a few of the famous French cheeses.

Since there is close to 1200 French cheeses, choosing which ones to present is a daunting and almost impossible task.  Some of you are familiar with at least a few by name, and others chosen are some of my favorites.

The vast majority of French cheeses can only be really appreciated here, as most are made with raw milk, which excludes their exportation to the US and to other countries as well.

It is the good bacteria that gives each of these cheeses their specific taste and color of their crusts; so pasteurization literally nullifies their individual characters.

An example of this is in the making of a true farm made Camembert, which is certainly one of the most popular cheeses, that has many industrial impostures.

Milk comes from Normand cows that are mostly brown and white dappled seen everywhere grazing in the fields of Normandy, famous for their butter and cream as well.

Patrick Mercier is one of the last farmers to make his Camembert the old traditional way.  He claims it’s the milk from his cows eating young grasses that make the richest milk.

He washes each of his cows teats, but does not disinfect them; saying that it the residual good bacteria that gives his cheeses the special gustative characteristics, that has made them famously sought after.

The regal Brie comes from the area just east of Paris, named after the villages where they are made, such as Brie de Melun, Brie de Meaux and Brie de Provins.

They are one of the oldest of French cheeses, dating back to pre Gallo Roman times. Each one has their own AOC and Chevaliers that uphold the merits of these cheeses with festive events and productions.

The famous banking family of Rothschild creates one of the best, a Brie de Provins exclusively from the Pie Noir cows, whereas the other use both Pie Noir and Prim Holsteins.

Les Brunes are pretty brown cows that make the exalted creamy, but powerful flavoured Epoisse from upper Burgundy.

The delicious mountain cheeses from the Jura and the Alpine regions count on the special breeds of cows that are rugged to climb high onto the slopes.

From mid May to mid October the hardy Monbelieards, Simmethals, and Tarentaise have practically the mountains to themselves,  where they are milked and the cheese made in the high mountain air.

The Alpine cheeses made in the summer months are the most sought after. It is the various Alpine aromatic herbs and flowers that flavors the cows’ milk, therefore perfuming the cheese with even more flavour.

I love going to the transhumance in the fall at Lac Annecy when the cows are brought down from the mountains to stay warm in stables during the rough freezing winters. It is a great time to acquaint yourself not only with the cows, but with all the delicacies of Savoie Alps.

Exquisite Comté and Mont D’Or come from the Jura and Reblochon, Beaufort, and Abondance cheese are from the Alps in Savoie.  I love the white ruffled Mont d’Or that comes in  a wooden box dug out with a spoon, which is a winter cheese.

With some white wine and garlic pour into the center and the placed in the oven to melt, it makes a fantastic fondue right out of the box.  You can dunk bread and vegetables in the middle and then dribble it over potatoes and sausages for a divine and easy meal.

The reputed Reblochon is great as is, but is also used in making fondues and Tartiflette, a famous stick to your ribs Alpine dish of onions, bacon and potatoes cooked in melted Reblochon that is utterly delicious but very high in calories!

The semi hard Comtés, Beauforts and Abondance are most appreciated with some age, where the small crystals of salt are excreted in the aging process.   These cheeses do not have holes, but the one that does.  called Emmental and is made in these regions as well in Switzerland.

A larger black spotted cow that room the Vosges mountains are called n.  The Vosges mountain range partially divides Alsace-Lorraine from the rest of France and is very famous for Munster.

Made exclusively from the Vosgienne cows, like pretty Henriette.  It can have a very strong odor, yet taste nutty and buttery on the tongue.  Again the best are made on small farms and frankly best bought in the region or from a trusted expert fromager in Paris.

There are literally hundreds of goat cheeses that you can find in just about every region of France.  You will find the countryside of France dotted with small goat farms offering their cheeses direct.

I love all varieties of them, from the freshly moulded to the aged in a multitude of shapes.  It seems to me that goats are the most active and playful of animals, and are very curious about everything.

Fresh goat milk is mild and creamy, but takes on a delightful slight acidity when made into cheeses. Often you will find them wrapped in leaves like chestnut, called a Banon from around Aix-en-Provence.

Some are in pyramid shapes and others square, round or in logs with a wrinkled crust or covered in ashes.  One thing is for sure, they are all delicious to me.  Hard to have favourites, but if choosing would be the ash covered Selles Sur Cher , herbs embedded one from Provence and the small pancake looking cheeses from beautiful  and sacred Rocamadour!

Ewes milk, called brebis here, from adorable Lacaune lambs make the gorgeous Roquefort in the rugged mountains in southeast France.  Without being injected with penicillin grown on old rye bread, and aged in the cool mountain caves of Roquefort, it can’t be called Roquefort.

I love the buttery saltiness and the melt in your mouth texture and could eat it every day, if not for the price!   Lambs milk makes another one of my favourite cheeses, the Fleur de Maquis or Brin d’Amour from the steep cliffs of Corsica, that is covered and aged with wild rosemary, savory, thyme, juniper berries and chillies.

Lamb’s milk makes the majority of the famous Pyrenees cheeses too, from the Basque country, where people still speak fluent Basque. Mountain sheep graze high up in the Pyrenees are exclusively from a different race called Baso Béarnaise and Manesh.

Most of the famous Basque cheeses are semi hard like the Ossau Iraty.  There are also many varieties of Tommes, which can be softer in texture.

French farmers are extremely disgruntled and angered by increasing price-fixing from huge milk and meat conglomerates and giant supermarket chains.  Prior to the salon there have been multiple strikes, and violent demonstrations against the industrialization and over involvement of governmental controls.

President Holland and Prime Minster Valls were both booed and insulted during their traditional visits.

Everywhere throughout the livestock section were  banners and even t shirts saying “Je meurs”, or I’m dying.  The minister of agriculture stand was vandalized and destroyed, along with a huge industrial meat distributor’s stand.

Farmers who make cheese feel that the European Union wants to destroy traditional and ancient ways of  making French cheeses to conform with overly strict norms imposed by some other countries.

Without raw milk, ancient methods, and the necessary good bacterium, these cheeses can not be made authentically!  Here is a troop of cows, I saw often marching through a small village near where I lived for a several months, close to the Swiss border smack between the Jura mountains and the Alps where Mont Blanc was always in view!

The French public supports the farmer’s plight and polls indicate a willingness to pay more for farm raised and produced products.  French have grown up celebrating the glories of their table from small farms and they have rallied in support of them.

I saw a lot of very young and impassioned teens tend to their animals, like the boy leading his cow out from milking her himself! They voice determination despite the hardships.

I do too! Vive les vrai fromages Francaises!