The Week UK - 14.03.2020

56 The last word

THE WEEK 14 March 2020

Inhissmallfromagerieat

Saint-Point-LacintheJura,

FabriceMichelinproduces

authentic,handmade,

raw-milkMontd’Orcheeses.

HeisthelastpersoninFrance

todoso–thelastinalineof

localcheesemakerswhich

goesbackforcenturies.“Iget

upat5am.Icollectthemilk

myselffromthefarmsinthe

village.Iwarmthemilk,”he

toldme.“Iscoopitcarefully

intocylinders.Ipayattention

tothevaryingconsistency

andtasteofthe curd. Italters

subtly with theseasons,

dependingon the qualities of

the grass.Imould thecheeses

by hand.Everycheeseisa

little different.”

Individual,artisanalcheeses?

Wonderful. Notany more,

it seems.“That’s what gets

me into trouble these days,”

Michelintold me.“Brussels

and Parissay thatthe cheeses

must allbe the same.There

seem tobe new rules every

month.But how canIcarry

on if allmycheeses have to

be identical?”

Forgettheyellowvests.Forget

the strikes against pension reform. Thereal battlefor the

immortalsoul ofFrance is aboutsomething farmore important:

cheese.The immensevarietyof French cheeses–one of thefinest

achievements of French culture–can appear almost limitless.But

in fact, their number is graduallybeing eroded and theirqualities

dumbed down. Only oneint en ofthe cheeses now consumed in

France is made withlait cru

(raw milk), in theauthentic

manner. Someof them–such

as salersdeburon (a semi-hard

cheesefrom the Auvergne), le

bleu du Queyras (a creamy blue

from the Alps), or le chevrotin

(a raregoat’s cheese from Savoie)–have been reduced to a

couple of producers.Others–likethe sweet Alpine vacherin

d’Abondance and Michelin’s own handmadeMont d’Or–are

down toasingle maker. Yet more have disappeared entirely.

Search where you like inthecheeseshops in France,youwillno

longerfindaBurgundian la Pierre-qui-Vire oraponeau fromthe

Pas-de-Calais; others to have gone include remoudou, Mont-

Blanc, Paradis and mersem.They are among 50 speciesof French

cheeseto have vanished,like rare flowers orbutterflies, inthe

past 40 years.

Many of the best-known French cheeses–brieorPont-l’Évêque

or camembert–thrive at home and abroad, butthese daysthey

are overwhelmingly made inlarge factories with pasteurised

orsterilisedmilk.To

purists,thatisabetrayal

oftheFrenchtraditionof

“livingcheese”.Ina“lait

cru”cheese,goodandbad

bacteriacanceleachanother

out,generatingadepthof

taste(andpungency)

unparalleledintheir

factory-madestepsisters.

Pasteurised-milkcheeseis,

toquoteoneof France’s

greatestfromagologues

(cheeseologists),Gérard

Poulard,“fineforsomeone

whoexpects to kiss someone

before the night isover...It is

acheeseforpeople who don’t

likecheese.”

But thefirst weeks of 2020

have brought welcome news

forpeople whodolike French

cheeses–and wholike them

genuine, non-romantic and

smelly. Since the 1990s,

Normandyhas beenrivenby

aquarrel aboutwhat kinds

of cheesesshoul dbecalled

“camembertde Normandie”.

In 2018, the quarrel seemed

to have been “settled” in

favour ofthe“Big Cheeses”

–France’smass-production

dairy industry. But afew

days ago, that decisionwas overturned byaconference of

Norman cheesemakersand milkproducers.The right touse

the magic words “appellationd’origineprotégée”(AOP) and

“camembert de Normandie”willremain limited toahalf-dozen

smallerfactories –Gillot, Réo, Jort and others–which useraw

milk, spooned into moulds by hand.

Under thepreviousruli ng,

ma ss-made, pasteurised

camemberts would also have

used thosecherished words

under stringentconditions. The

raw-milk camembertswould

hav ebeengiven aseparate status as “véritable camembert de

Normandie”. Some French defenders of raw-milk cheeses liked

that idea ofa“splitappellation”. Theyhoped it wouldboost the

qualityof some genericsupermarketcamembert s. They saidthat

it would provide higher income to Normandairy farmers, while

giving the raw-milk camemberts their ownbadge of authenticity

and quality. It would also removealegally doubtful anomaly that

allows mass-produced camemberts, made from milk fromallover

France and beyond, to be marketed as “fabriqué en Normandie”.

Véronique Richez-Lerouge–the founder-president of the pressure

group Fromages de Terroirs, who is known as the“JoanofArc

of traditional French cheese”–disagrees,pungently. “This was

agreat victory for real French cheese,” she said. “Splittingthe

The battle for the soul of

French cheese

FabriceMichelin:“Thereisnothingmoreindividualthanarealcheese”

It’sfarmoreimportanttoFrancethanyellowvestsorstrikesoverpensionreforms,saysJohnLichfield.

Butinrecentyearsthenear-limitlessvarietyofFrenchcheesehascomeunderthreat

“Only one in ten of the cheeses now

consumed in France is made with raw-milk,

or ‘lait cru’, in the authentic manner”