Say Cheese

First of all, sorry for bombarding you with blog posts recently. Oftentimes fun or interesting things happen, but I don't have the time to blog about them right away. But I'm going to try and make an effort to catch up on those non-time-sensitive entries which I think you might enjoy.

It's hard to overstate how much French people love their fromage. I guess you could say they love wine even more, but even that is up for discussion. And just like with wine, I'm a total novice when it comes to cheese. I'm willing to try anything, but often I forget to write down the name, or just plain don't comprehend when the friend/server/host tells it to me. So, I'm still learning. But I thought you might like an introduction to the cheeses I have tried so far, knowing there will certainly be more to come.

A brief word about French cheeses in general: there are three main types of French cheese:

1. Fromages au lait de vache (cows' milk cheeses)
2. Fromages au lait de chèvre (goats' milk cheeses)
3. Fromages au lait de brebis (ewes' milk cheeses)

Many of them are AOC, which stands for Appellation d’origine contrôlée ("controlled designation of origin"). This is the certification granted to certain geographical regions to produce specific products which can only bear the name if they come from that area -- think, Champagne, which can only be called that if it actually comes from Champagne. This is all based on the concept of terroir, that certain products like wine and cheese are intrinsically linked to the area in which they originated because of its specific climatological and geological features. AOC-type regulations for wine have been around in France since the beginning of the 20th century, and now include other products like cheese, butter, honey, mustard, and meat.

First off, cheese from Franche-Comté.

Comté

It's in the name, and it's the pride and joy of the region. They put Comté on everything (not an exaggeration, I had dinner at Colin's the other night and he and his brother cut up Comté to put on the rice that went with their chili...) It's made from unpasteurized cows' milk and has the highest production of all French AOC cheeses (40,000 tons, or 88 million pounds, per year). It's relatively firm, with a distinctive and slightly sweet taste.

Morbier

The name of this cheese comes from name of its village of origin. It's a semi-soft cheese which is white-ish and instantly recognizable by the thin line of tasteless ash separating it horizontally across the middle. Nowadays the ash is just added for tradition, but originally it was put there to protect the curd overnight, if the evening's milking didn't produce enough milk for an entire wheel of cheese. It is quite creamy, with a rich flavor. 

Cancoillotte

This cheese is produced principally in Franche-Comté, but also in the Lorraine region and in Luxembourg. I've described it previously on my blog and been fortunate enough to try quite a few different varieties (the garlic-flavored one is my favorite). It can be eaten hot (served over potatoes) or cold (drizzled like a spread on bread). The texture is similar to that of yogurt, or slightly runnier if it's hot. 

 

Monte d'Or / Vacherin du Haut-Doubs

This cheese comes from the Jura region and is only available from September 10 through May 10, and since the season was just beginning when I got to Besançon, I saw lots of signs in grocery stores and cheese shops announcing its arrival. It's a soft cheese which is sold in round containers of various sizes and is often eaten as a fondue (I still have to try that). It has a fairly strong flavor.

Sapin

This cows' milk cheese is one I picked  at random in the grocery store and really liked. I find its sweet, slightly nutty flavor to be quintessentially French... I'm not sure why, but the aroma ad flavor is one I seem to encounter a lot here, but never at home. It comes from Franche-Comté and is made by a cheesemaker called Perrin, in the same style as the Mont d'Or. It comes in a wooden box encircled with a piece of Spruce bark, which imparts some of the nutty, woodsy flavor to the cheese. It's a medium-soft cheese, with a creamy white center.

And now, for the rest:

Roquefort

Of all the cheeses I've listed so far, this is probably the only one whose name you recognize. It had heard of it before I arrived in France, but I'm not even sure I could have told you that it is a type of blue cheese. Roquefort, which comes from Roquefort-sur-Soulzon in south-central France, is made with ewe's milk, which, along with its AOC, distinguishes it from other types of blue cheese. The cheese is white, tangy, crumbly and slightly moist, with distinctive veins of green mold. It has a very distinctive taste which I happen to love. With 18,000 tonnes being produced annually, Roquefort is France's second most-popular cheese, after Comté. 

Bleu d’Auvergne

While it is also a blue cheese, Bleu d'Auvergne is not the same thing as Roquefort. First of all, it's made with cows' milk, not ewes' milk, and secondly it comes from Auvergne (also south-central France, but not as far south). This bleu isn't as salty as others and has with a creamier taste and a moister texture. I first tried it in Strasbourg, when Brooke and I had lunch at Jeanette et les Cycleux. Apparently it's very popular there because it pairs well with sweet dessert wines like Reisling or Sauvignon Blanc, which are both grown in Alsace.

Munster

This was another cheese I had heard of before coming to France, but definitely could not have identified. It was also part of the sampler that Brooke and I had for lunch in Strasbourg, and it was one of her favorites. It comes from the Vosges mountains, which are between the French regions of Alsace, Lorraine, and Franche-Comté. It's a soft cheese with a medium-strong flavor (not as strong as the Mont d'Or, for example). 

Époisses de Bourgogne

And now we bring out the heavy hitters... This cheese is not for the faint of heart, nor those with extra-sensitive noses. This cheese comes from the village of Epoisses in the departement of Cote d'Or, halfway between Dijon and Auxerre. It has a distinctive orange-red color and is sold in round containers. It also has a distinctive smell... this is a stinky cheese! The people who love it don't mind, but I can't say I count myself to be one of them, at least not yet. It's just a little too much for my taste buds. I tried it first with my host family in Dijon, and have been roped into trying it again a few times since then. Apparently it's best consumed in conjunction with a good Bourgogne Pinot Noir or a Bordeaux Sauternes (a sweet white wine), but I think for now I'll just stick to the wine by itself...

Tête de Moine

This cheese I tried for the first time last Thursday, at Jeremy's wine-and-cheese-themed crémaillère (housewarming party). Jeremy and his wife both work for the local news station, France3 Franche-Comté, and recently moved here from Dijon. When I first heard of the party's theme I found it a bit silly (isn't wine and cheese the theme of every French party?), but once I got there I realized this was no joking matter. There were at least 16 different kinds of cheese, and at least as many wines. Many of them I had never seen or heard of before, including Tête de Moine (literally, "monks' head"). Like many French cheeses, its origins come from the activities of monks who produced it for themselves and as a source of income for their abbeys (in this case, the Bellelay Abbey). This particular cheese has been around at least since 1292. It is characterized by its cylindrical form, and is cut using a girolle, a scraper on an axle planted in the center of the cheese. Actually the cheese has to be scraped in order to develop its flavors, just cutting it doesn't produce the same taste. It's a firm cheese with a mild flavor (about the same strength as Comté, but definitely a different taste). 

Mimolette

A cheese traditional produced in and around the city of Lille, France, it's also known as Boule de Lille after its city of origin, or vieux Hollande. It's a fairly bright orange color (from the natural colorant annato) and the taste is somewhat similar to Parmesean. It's a hard cheese and I find it quite tasty. When I tried it it was served as a wedge, but apparently the wheel in its entirety resembles a canteloupe! 

Chèvre

So chèvre is the French word for 'goat,' and also the abbreviated version of froamge du chèvre or goats' milk cheese. There are 14 different AOC chèvre cheeses produced in France, the largest of which is Crottin de Chavignol (in the Loire Valley). Most of the chèvre produced in France either comes from the Loire Valley or from the region of Poitou (eastern coast of France, contains the city of Poitiers). Chèvre comes in many different varities: fresh, ripened, dry, rolled in ash, grapes, herbs, spices (such as pepper or saffron), honey, soaked in olive oil or in wine. I happen to love goat cheese, although I generally prefer the fresh to the aged kind. It's all about the context though. In general the goat cheese here is not as fluffy or as crumbly as the goat cheese I encounter at home perhaps that goat cheese has cows' milk or ewes' milk added and that gives it a different texture).

Chaussée aux Moines

Another cheese with ecclesiastical origins... this one comes the département of Mayenne in the Loire Valley (northwestern-ish France). I also tasted this one for the first time at Jeremy's crémaillère on Thursday. I wasn't a huge fan, it didn't seem to have a particularly interesting or memorable flavor. It was mild and soft, and sort of a standard white-ivory color. 

Tomme de Savoie 

This is the variety of tomme cheese which comes from Savoie (so logical, right?). Savoie is located in the département of Rhône-Alpes, south and east of Doubs, where Besançon is located). Tomme is the name of a type of cheese produced in the French Alps and in Switzerland, which is normally produced from the skim milk left over after the cream has been removed to make butter and richer cheeses. Because of this they are usually low in fat. Tomme de Savoie might be the most common variety of tomme. It's a mild, semi-firm cheese with a beige interior and a grayish-brown rind. I have to say this one isn't my favorite either; it's a mild cheese, but the flavor it does have isn't my favorite. I should probably make an effort to try it some more though, since it's such a mainstay. 

Langres

I tried this cheese at the suggestion of the guy at the local fromagerie (cheese store). This was back in October when I was doing things like buying cheese at a fromagerie, instead of the grocery store. Then I realized that my teaching assistant salary does not include a gourmet cheese budget, so I got a little more reasonable. But luckily here it's easy to find really delicious cheeses without having to go to a specialty store. But, back to Langres. This cheese comes from, you guessed it, Langres, which is in the region of Champagne-Ardenne. The rind is anywhere from yellowish to orangey-red, and the inside is a creamy white. It's a medium-soft cheese with a strong but agreeable taste (this one's much easier on the tastebuds than an Epoisses).

Hopefully I'll have more cheeses to report back to you soon!

In Bruges

So the title of this blog entry is also the title of a film which came out in 2008, although I had never heard of it until this weekend. Based on the movie poster I have little desire to watch it, but apparently it got a score of 82% on Rotten Tomatoes, so maybe it is indeed worth a viewing...

But this blog entry isn't really about movies, it's about last weekend (Dec 2-4). Brooke took a trip to Belgium this past summer when she was the graduate assistant at the Flow House and enjoyed it so much that she was willing to make the trip with me. I found a cheap flight through EasyJet which happened to go through Lyon, so on Friday afternoon I was able to grab coffee and catch up with Mary-Kate during my lay-over. Then I continued on to Brussels, where I met Brooke in the train station and the two of us took a train to Bruges.

Brooke was in charge of the accommodations and we ended up staying at a hostel very near the city center. It was called... wait for it... Snuffel Hostel. Anyone familiar with my family's "Snuffles the cat" gag will find this somewhat amusing, I certainly did. Here's photographic evidence, but really, would I make this up?

Friday night we got in pretty late, and Bruges is sort of a tourist town, so by 11pm our food options were pretty much limited to frituurs (French fry stands / restaurants). We indulged, then grabbed a drink at a bar called The Illusionist. When in Belgium one can hardly drink wine, so we both tried one of the beers on tap. Mine was a Brugse Zot blond, and we found out the following day on our canal tour that Brugse Zot is only type of beer still brewed within the Bruges city walls. I thought it was tasty!

The next morning we let ourselves sleep in until 9am, then hit the city for some hardcore sight-seeing and chocolate window-shopping (okay, we tasted a bit). The Markt Square is the center of Bruges and it is breath-taking. Brooke is a big fan of Gothic architecture and I can see why she likes Bruges so much -- these people did Gothic in a big way. Usually Gothic buildings in France are limited to cathedrals, so it was cool to see the same style used for municipal buildings. Bruges was lucky to escape the ravages of WWII and so all of these glorious old buildings are intact. All of the Christmas decorations are up to, which are particularly nice because it gets dark so early now (4:45pm here in Besançon). There was also a skating rink set up in the middle of the square, surrounded by the "Christmas market." I put that in scare quotes because most of the wares being proffered for sale were the Made in China variety and half of the stalls were selling the Belgian foodstuff equivalent of State Fair food (churros? pitas?). That's not to say it wasn't still festive-looking, it just felt a bit Disneyland-esque.

So first we went on a boat tour of the canals, something Brooke did last summer and highly recommended. It was cool to see the city from the canals, and our guide was very informative, if a bit monotone. He was British; Brits also seemed to make up a majority of the tourists I saw in Bruges. After the canal tour Brooke and I headed across the square to the Fish Market (which now is mostly populated with craft-vendors, but did have one or two fish vendors). Last summer Brooke bought a watercolor from an artist there, who promptly asked if he could paint her portrait, which he then gave her. Not only was that artist there, but his girlfriend who was running his stand recognized Brooke! The artist, a certain Johan Lootens, was painting in a cafe across the square because of the bad weather (actually we were lucky and it didn't rain, but it looked foreboding all day). We stopped in to saw hello, then continued on our way in search of the perfect Belgian chocolate. Well, I can hardly say that we conducted a systematic scientific study. Mostly we window-shopped, and we may or may not have tried a few samples. There were soo many different chocolate stores, it would take a whole weekend just to look in all of them. Here was one of the displays:

The best chocolate I sampled was from a store called Galler. Despite the immaculate and appealing window displays, the store was completely empty when we walked by (code for: it's really expensive). I tried just one chocolate and it was heavenly. Brooke pointed out that Galler is a "Belgian Royal Warrant Holder," meaning that the Belgian royal family officially endorses their products. How cool is that?

Here I'm tasting a free sample of the store's homemade marshmellows dipped in their chocolate fountain! My marshmellow was cassis-flavored. 

Here is Brooke purchasing the first Belgian waffle of the weekend. I have to admit I was a bit skeptical of all of the hype; I like waffles as much as the next decent fellow, but they don't strike me as crave-worthy, mouth-watery dessert-status. But, I was wrong. These waffles weren't your average slap-on-the-butter-and-syrup kind... they tasted almost like brioche: thick and sweet dough with an almost crispy sugary outside. Brooke went for the nature variety (plain) and she had the right idea. I tried one with chocolate sauce later in the weekend, and the chocolate sort of masked the particular and delicious flavor of the waffle. Overall, a must-try.

In the afternoon Brooke and I did a self-guided walking tour of the city, courtesy of her guidebook. I won't rattle off the facts (let's face it, I don't remember a lot of them). Although there certainly isn't a lack of history, the best part of Bruges was the incredible atmosphere. The quaint architecture combined with the narrow streets and canals gave the city a magical quality, like Venice, but without the haunted side. Here are some pictures:

Then after the tour we climbed the 360 steps to the top of the Belfort (belfry). I thought that the 300+ steps to the top of the Strasbourg cathedral platform were a workout! But the Belfort had convenient little turn offs where we could give our legs a second to rest, I mean, where we could take advantage of the cool views...

It got dark around 4:45pm, and Brooke and I were both a little tired, so we took a quick nap at the hostel before dinner. Unfortunately by the time we got out and started checking out restaurants, most of them were full / booked for the night. We found one eventually, where I ordered a Flemish stew (washed it down with a Brugse Zot brun) and Brooke ordered wallabey! They were both quite yummy.

Sunday morning we were back out to do some more sight-seeing, then caught a train back to Brussels. We got there a bit later than we originally planned, because we decided to stop in the Bruggemuseum in the Stadhuis (town hall / rathaus / hôtel de ville). I'm so glad we did, because while the first floor was a little dull (lots of portraits of old guys on horses), the second floor contained the "gothic room," a ceremonial chamber designed to reflect the artistic, architectural, and historical heritage of Bruges (as in the paintings of historically-significant moments were done in a Flemish style of painting). It's relatively new: I believe it was finished around 1900. I thought it was magnificent, and a really neat way to preserve a city's history.

Then it was time to hit the road! Brooke and I headed back to Brussels, where we had lunch at a cafe called Arcadi Cafe (rue d'Arenberg 18). If you're ever in Brussels, I highly recommend it! Apparently the cafe is known for its quiche and the accolades are all well-deserved! My slice of mushroom quiche was phenomenal -- deserving of adjectives usually only reserved for breath-taking landscapes or miracle births or something equally exceptional. The desserts looked even better, but unfortunately we had to get going.

We really only walked around Brussels for a couple of hours: but I was struck by how much the city reminded me of a combination of Paris and Bruges. Brussels has the feel of a big city, but with some of the architecture I saw in Bruges mixed in. This is perhaps exemplified by the cathedral, which is squashed between two modern-looking buildings and faces a park with modern art sculptures. The main historical center (with the city hall, etc) was jam-packed with people (Brooke actually took these pictures on Friday afternoon when she was waiting for me to arrive... but we went to the same places on Sunday afternoon. They were much busier then!)

As soon as it got dark they started projecting a light show onto the town hall!

I mentioned that Brooke and I only spent a few hours in Brussels because we both had to catch our planes back home. Well, about that. It turns out that the train labeled "airport" (in English, no language issues here) which leaves from the Brussels-Midi train station doesn't actually go to the airport. Instead, it takes you to another train station, where you can then take a train to the airport (after waiting for about 20 minutes). So it turned out that we arrived in the airport train station less than 5 minutes before my flight was scheduled to board. Despite running through the main terminal to security, begging the airport security attendant to let me go ahead in the line (she refused) and then sprinting the length of the longest terminal I have ever encountered (listen, I run enough to be a decent judge of distances, this terminal was at least 3/4 of a mile long).... I missed my flight. Technically the airplane was still there, but they had closed the door and wouldn't let me on. So, I burst into tears. That didn't change their minds though (changing their minds wasn't even my intention, I think it was the post-sprint adrenaline dump). So, I pulled it together, walked to the information desk, and found another flight home. Luckily, Mary-Kate was nice enough to let me spend the night with her in Lyon, since taking the 8pm flight meant I missed the last train back to Besançon. I took the 5:22am train the next morning, which was scheduled to arrive at 8:30am -- enough time for me to make my first class at 9:15am), but which didn't arrive until 9:15am because the connection in Dijon was delayed. Yikes!! I guess I was overdue for a dose of bad travel karma. Cutting it closer than necessary by taking a later train from the Brussels city center was definitely my fault, but the unanticipated second train before the airport, plus the delayed train in Dijon were just bad luck. The school's director didn't seem too pleased (I called the school as soon as I realized I wasn't going to make it on time), but the teacher was really understanding.

Moral of the story: Bruges is really beautiful, but slightly too far from Besançon to go for a weekend. To all of the rest of you not commuting from a small town in France, I highly recommend it as a vacation destination. I bet it's even prettier in the summer too!

Pain Perdu

In case you were worried, this blog entry title doesn't reference any kind of suffering or physical affliction. Pain is French for bread, and pain perdu is what we call French toast. French toast is an American breakfast-food staple, and yet I would bet most people don't know anything about its origin or why we call it French toast.

The source of this yummy brunch fodder is rooted in the French bread culture: specifically, one in which people purchase fresh bread every day. Without preservatives, bread gets stale very quickly. So stale you could use it as a baseball bat, or some kind of club. I recently encountered this when I purchased a baguette complete (whole-grain baguette) on Friday after I got back from my stage (a training seminar, in this case held for all of the primary school English assistants).

Purchasing bread in the late-afternoon/evening is always a bit of a risk, because if it was baked at 4 o'clock that morning, it might already be a little tough. That was the case here... so I anticipated that by the next day, or certainly by Sunday, my teeth would be in danger. Luckily, the French have already come up with a way to resolve this problem: pain perdu (literally 'lost bread'). Dipping the stale bread in the egg-milk mixture loosens up those tough starch fibers and saves that which was once inedible. This fits quite nicely into the French mentality of avoiding any kind of waste while cooking (and I prefer this incarnation of frugality to, say, eating brains or tongue).

So today I used the French solution to my stale bread conundrum, and made French toast! I got back from my 3-hour horseback riding stage at the Ecuries Chateau-Galland around 12:30pm and whipped up two eggs and some milk, added a bit of cinnamon and nutmeg, dipped the three slices of rock-hard bread in said mixture, then toasted them in a frying pan. Slathered on some Nutella and topped the bread with one sliced banana  -- yum! Plus I happened to have some maple syrup left over from a recipe I made a few weeks ago, so I drizzled that on top. Probably not my healthiest lunch ever, but hey, at least I'm trying to be authentic :-)

Springele

UPDATE: It turns out I am ahead of the Christmas cookie trends this year in making Springele... the Wall Street Journal just ran an article today calling them the "crown jewel of all holiday cookies." Check out the article here (and thanks to my mom for bringing it my attention).

So while Brooke and I were in Freiburg we happened upon a little market in front of the cathedral. One of the vendors was selling hand-carved wooden molds (as in for cookies or bread), and Brooke wanted to check them out. She has been trying to find some ever since she saw some really cool ones being used as decoration store in Brugge, but the store-owners refused to sell them to her. This stall-owner was really friendly, and explained that the different depths of mold were used for different types of cookies. He even gave us free samples of the two different types of cookies (good marketing technique).

I ended up buying a small-ish mold with a swan carved into it. The depth of my mold was for making Springele, a biscuit-like cookie flavored with anis seeds. The stall vendor gave me a recipe card along with the mold, so I could make them myself. Although I had the intention of making the cookies much sooner, I just got around to doing it last Wednesday/Thursday (the recipe called for letting the cookies dry overnight, which made the timing a little tricky).

The process took a lot longer than I expected, and the later cookies turned out a lot prettier than the first ones -- this kind of dough required lots of kneading and I'm used to the dough for scones and banana bread, which you're supposed to touch as little as possible. But once I figured out that a liberal amount of flour and lots of rolling and rerolling made the dough more workable, the swans came out clearer. And the mold made quite large cookies!

Here was the result:

The backdrop is a watercolor Mom did for me -- I thought it was an appropriate setting for the swans:

The recipe made 39 cookies, and I took most of them to École Bourgogne on Monday to share with the other teachers during the récré (recess, in this case the afternoon one at 3pm). The teachers take turns bringing some kind of cookies or biscuits to go with the coffee, tea, or hot chocolate most of them drink during the pause. The cookies were gone very quickly, so I think the teachers enjoyed them as much as I did. I plan to make them again in the future.

Here's the recipe, in case you're interested:

Ingredients

• 500g flour
• 500g super-fine sugar (or 'SUPA fine,' if your name is Peter Dayton)
• 4 eggs 
• grated lemon rind (the recipe doesn't specify, I used half a lemon's worth)
• 1 knife-tip baking soda (after extensive internet searching, I found no definitive translation for '1 knife-tip,' so I used about half of a teaspoon, which seemed to work)
• 1 tablespoon rum 
• Anis seed, for decoration

Preparation
Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celcius / 375 degrees Fahrenheit (this wasn't listed on the recipe, so I sort of winged it). Whisk the eggs and sugar until foamy, mix the rum and baking soda and add with lemon rind to the egg mixture. Fold in the sieved flour and knead until the dough is smooth. Now cover with a towel and leave the dough to stand for an hour. Then cut small pieces of dough and roll them out to about 1cm thick (the dough is easier to work with if you roll it and reroll it multiple times, adding flour generously when needed). Dust the mold with flour and then press the rolled dough into the mold; turn the mold over and carefully remove the dough. Separate the shapes and cover and leave to dry overnight. Cover a greased baking sheet with anis seed and place the biscuits on it. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until just golden. If necessary prevent browning by covering with aluminum foil.