Max and the Cheese Factory

In France, cheese is probably one of the most important products we make.  The cheese here is a great example of what makes French food the best, but also how food brings friends and neighbors together.

Remember my friend, Camille?  She uses French cheese on her pizzas.  The most famous kinds of cheese from here in the Franche Compte are, Compte (of course) [KOM-TAH], Morbier [MORE-BE-AY], Raclette [RACK-LET] and Bleu le Gex. [BLU-DAY-GECH].  Surprisingly, these cheeses are all made from the same milk, but they are made at different times of the year and with different techniques.

Margaritte sells the cheese at her cheese store, called a laiterie [LATE-ER-EE] or fromagerie [FRO-MAJ-ER-EE].  And right outside her doors, there are cows that parade down the street on their way from fields to the barn to be milked.

What makes the cheese here taste different is the grass the cows eat.  The dairy farmers have very special fields where they take the cows in the morning and bring them back in the afternoon.  In the winter, when the grass is all covered up, the cows have to eat hay and that makes their milk different.

That’s why farmers used to make different cheeses at different times of the year.

Cheese has been made for thousands of years as a way to preserve milk longer and create different ways to enjoy milk.  Because cheese making meant turning a liquid (milk) into a solid (cheese) many people believed that it involved witchcraft.

This, of course, is nonsense.  Making cheese is fun and easy.  You can even do it yourself with an adult’s help.

Here’s the ingredients you will need:

Ingredients:
1 quart fresh, local whole milk
1 cup active-culture buttermilk
2 tsp lemon juice or white vinegar, more if needed
3/4 tsp salt, or to taste

Of course, after hundreds of years, cheese makers have had a lot of opportunities to perfect the process and develop hundreds of types of cheese.  Today, I’m touring a fromagerie near Besancon where they make Morbier cheese.

My new friend Katrina.

The way they make cheese today is the same way they have for hundreds of years and, essentially, the same way you would make it today at home.  Only now, THEY MAKE THE CHEESE WITH ROBOTS!

It’s true!  Here I am watching the robots put the cheese into a salt bath.  This makes the cheese tastier and helps it develop a hard outside skin (or rine) to protect it from nasty molds (and stupid dogs.)

I love the fromagerie because I get to come inside and Ned has to stay out with my friends who protect me…

Evidently, many years ago, they used to make dogs haul the cheese in wagons.  I think that’s a great and funny idea…

The cow’s milk is added to a big vat like this one and heated up just enough.  Then the acid is added in order to form the curds.  Remember Miss Muffet?  She was eating the separated cows’ milk.  The curds are separated from the whey using a clothe.

That’s a BIG vat.

The curd is now placed into a mold, where the remaining liquid is squeezed out.  How much get squeezed depends on the kind of cheese you are making.  Hey, this mold is for Morbier, not marmots!

Morbier is a winter cheese.  In the winter, the cows eat hay and not grass, so they don’t give as much milk.  Sometimes, cheesemakers didn’t get enough curds to fill the entire mold.  Do you know what they did?  They actually added ashes from the fireplace on top of the bottom layer of cheese!  Some people say that they did this so their cheese looked like bleu cheese, which was very popular and expensive to make.  Some people said they did it to keep the curds from getting moldy.  Whatever the reason, the next morning they brushed off the ashes and then added another layer of curd to the mold to make a complete cheese.  This left a dark line in the cheese that is distinctly Morbier!

After the cheese has the liquid pressed out of it, it is bathed in salt water or rubbed with salt  before it is placed on a shelf to wait over a month before it is ready to be eaten.

That is a LOT of cheese.

Today, they have to cut the rounds of cheese in half before salting them and add the layer of soot or ashes (along with some salt) in order to create the black line in the cheese.  Without the black line, it’s just not the same cheese to French people who love cheese.

Every two or three days, the cheese is taken off the shelf and rubbed with more salt.

Cheese with ashes in it sounds gross, but let me tell you, it’s GOOOOOD stuff…

Later, we met our friends Matty and Dom to make real French fondue.  Fondue is a melted cheese sauce that you dip bread in.  Dom is a real expert at making authentic French fondue.

Here, I’m buying our bread from Kiki the bread truck driver.  Every morning, Kiki comes through town blowing her horn (THANKS A LOT!)  That lets us know that we need to go out and buy our bread.  If we miss it, we have to eat yesterday’s crusts—if there is any left.

Dom gets the fondue ready by slicing the garlic and rubbing it on the inside of the pot.

There is some wine that goes into the pot, as well as lots of cheese, but don’t worry, the alcohol in the wine boils off and it’s perfectly safe for kids.  Dom wouldn’t give me his secret recipe for all of it, but here’s a recipe you can use at home.

The cheese is a bit salty, but I just love it.

Unfortunately, I got caught trying on one of the cow bells and that was the end of my golden ticket tour through the fromagerie.

I never did learn the secret recipe for the Everlasting Goobstomper Fondue, but I did learn a lot about the history of cheese and how it was made.  Next time you have some mac and cheese or make your own pizza, try to mix it up with some different kinds of cheeses or some cheese that you make yourself.  Cheesemaking is hard work, but when you try the real stuff you will know that there is a difference.