My Month in a French Cheese Cave
Following a trip to the Slow Food Cheese Festival in Northern Italy, FMCA member Alison Brien* spent a month training with legendary French affineur Herve Mons and his team.An affineur is a person who ripens and matures cheese; who has an intimate understanding of the production and life cycle of different cheeses and nurtures each cheese to perfection in carefully controlled environments. It is a specialised field requiring knowledge of cheese-making techniques and AOC regulations, animal health, grazing pastures, the seasons, microbiology, "cave dynamics" such as air flow and humidity, the sensory attributes of cheese and changing consumer trends.
Herve is a second-generation affineur and head of his company, Mons Fromager & Affineur (henceforth referred to as "Mons"), which comprises two cheese maturation facilities, several fromageries (cheese shops) and a training facility. Herve has been awarded a Meilleur Ouvrier de France, a testament to his commitment to the fields of cheese education, affinage, and preserving traditional French cheeses - particularly raw milk cheeses.
Mons has just completed work on a new maturation facility that can accommodate around 90 tonnes of cheese - and yes, it will all be turned by hand! The site is an old railway tunnel which has been transformed into a massive cheese cellar. Because the tunnel passes through a hill, it is a perfectly insulated environment for maturing cheeses. I was lucky enough to work in the tunnel for one day, turning my way through almost one tonne of cheese over 12 hours.
Most other days I worked in the other Mons facility known as "the caves" - a series of underground rooms specially designed for maturing different cheeses. Each cave has natural earth and stone floors which are important elements in controlling the temperature and humidity. The affinage team consisted of six people, managed by Eric Meredith - an American with as much energy and passion for cheese as Herve.
We would spend our days receiving young cheeses and sorting them according to their level of ripeness, then the cheeses would go into different caves depending on their needs. We would also tend to the cheeses already maturing in the caves, turning them, brushing them, patting down the mould or washing them with special solutions to encourage favourable mould growth on the surface. Each cheese receives quite a bit of personalised attention - it's a bit like a cheese nursery.
Almost all of the cheeses had been made with raw milk and Mons has a strict testing procedure to ensure product safety.
One day we left the caves for some fresh mountain air on a trip into the Auvergne region to collect a batch of Salers - a cheese very close to Herve's heart. Salers is an ancient raw-milk cheese made much in the same way that it has been for centuries. Made by small dairies using quite an involved process, it takes several days to complete one wheel of cheese.
Salers is made in basic stone huts called burons, high up in the mountains. During summer the cows are taken up the mountains to graze on alpine pastures, and the farmer stays in the mountain buron for four months, making a cheese every single day. Because Salers is produced following traditional methods, some of the cheese-making equipment is made of wood, although the cheesemaker told me it is becoming increasingly difficult to justify and preserve the use of wooden implements in light of current French food production laws.
I also had the opportunity to work in the Mons cheese shops, which provided a great insight into French cheese culture. I worked one day at the fromagerie in Montbrisson, run by the pair of fromagers who won Caseus 200, a type of international cheese Olympics, www.caseus-award.com. Coincidently, it happened to the be the annual celebration of the local cheese - Fourme de Montbrison - so we spent the morning offering samples of industrial, artisan and farmhouse versions to customers so that they could taste the difference between the types and learn about their production.
The next weekend I worked in the fromagerie in Roanne with yet another team of talented and passionate fromagers. As an Australian-trained fromager, it was a real eye-opener to see how a French fromagerie is run, and how different are the buying habits of French shoppers. They were all very interested to hear about cheese in Australia, and were shocked to discover that we aren't permitted to sell any soft raw-milk cheeses here - products that are part of their daily lives.
Disappointingly, due to the restrictions on raw-milk cheeses in Australia, only a limited range of Mons cheese is available here - specifically Ossau-Iraty, Roquefort, Bleu d'Auvergne and Fourme d'Ambert. There is currently a submission before FSANZ to allow the production and sale of raw-milk cheese in Australia, but although a majority is in support of allowing access to raw-milk cheese, it is beginning to look like the submission will not be approved. In response, Slow Food Australia has started a petition which will be tabled in parliament early next year. If you are passionate about raw-milk cheese I implore you to sign the petition - it can be found online at http://slowfoodaustralia.com.au. In the meantime, have a very cheesey Christmas!
*Alison Brien is a Sydney fromager who runs cheese appreciation courses through her business, Cheese Boardroom. See www.cheeseboardroom.com.au for more details.
Member Roberta Muir has added her voice to the call, writing: "I believe this is an important cause, to give Australians the choice of whether or not they eat Australian raw-milk cheese. I encourage you to add your signature to the following petition and to pass on the word to everyone you know who may be interested." Go to www.slowfoodsydney.com.au and scroll down to "Australian raw milk cheese campaign", then click on the link to either the "online petition" or "multiple signature" petition.
