Passage to Jura: A Lesson in Cheese Tasting
‘Cowgirl Creamery Cooks’
I remember the first time I stepped up to the Cowgirl Creamery’s stand at the San Francisco Ferry Building nearly a decade ago. I’d never been to Sue Conley and Peggy Smith’s creameries in Point Reyes or Petaluma, but I’d heard the cheese made there—using Straus Family Creamery’s certified organic milk, which is always a sure sign of a delicious thing—spoken of in reverent whispers. First, I tasted the best-selling Mt. Tam, and instantly understood its triple-cream popularity (it really is like butter). Then, they got me to try the brine-washed Red Hawk, with its equally luxuriant, creamy center. From there, I branched out to the spicy Devil’s Gulch, and then the homemade fromage blanc and crème fraîche.
Conley and Smith have done much not just to promote the raw ingredients and cheese of their own region, but to advance American cheese-making as a whole. Since they first started their business in 1997, this country’s fromagerie scene has blown up. Now these Northern California girls apply their expertise to cooking with cheese. Their new cookbook, though, is so much more than that. It tells their story, and those of the many cheesemakers around the world who have served as inspiration (and delivered some unforgettable tasting experiences). Published by Chronicle Books, the Cowgirl tome on tomme arrives October 30, but you can read a preview here. The following excerpt takes you to Bordeaux, then the Jura Mountains, and leaves you with a versatile recipe (with multiple variations) for those French cheese puffs known as gougères. Get ready to gorge.
—Charlotte Druckman
We gained an invaluable lesson in identifying the flavors in cheese while visiting Jean d’Alos, the renowned fromager and affineur in Bordeaux, France. Peggy had met Jean-Claude and Pascale Cazalas, owners of the shop, when she worked at Chez Panisse, so while in France, we were invited to a cheese tasting with Jean-Claude in the cellars of Jean d’Alos.
From the street, Jean d’Alos looks like a modern white storefront with an office space above, but the fromagerie is built over a sixteenth-century monastery. The medieval catacombs that lie deep underground wind all the way to the Gironde Estuary. The thick limestone walls of the catacombs are ideal for storing and aging cheese because they provide a constant, cool temperature and are porous enough to maintain natural humidity.
To further control the environments in the caves, Jean-Claude and Pascale built several small rooms on each of the three subterranean levels. The variations in humidity and temperature from one level to the next can be subtle, but the results are dramatic. The lowest floor is the coolest and most humid, perfect for mold-ripened cheeses that are fully mature. Aged cheeses are stored on the second floor, which is not quite as cool and humid. The top floor is for cheeses that require less moisture and a slightly warmer temperature.
Aged cheeses rested on row after row of thick wooden planks, stacked from floor to ceiling. The soft bloomy rinded cheeses were carefully placed on shiny stainless-steel wheeled racks. Small white paper tags dangled from the cheeses and the shelves; handwritten notes on these tags told the history of each cheese including make date; receiving date; turning schedule; washing, brushing, or other treatment; and any maintenance the cheese had received. We saw hundreds of shelves with two dozen cheeses on each shelf and thirty rolling steel racks with ten shelves on each stack. We were counting in our heads, thinking that there were at least two thousand cheeses and each of them had to be turned, brushed, and pampered until the experts deemed them ripe and ready for the shop.
Seeing the cheeses in these caves was like seeing a Titian painting in a church instead of a museum. The mottled rinds of the cheeses showed every color imaginable. The damp odors in the caves ranged from bacon to porcini mushrooms, and we could hear the sounds of dripping whey and the hum of refrigeration. Many of the cheeses were as heavy as stones, and the old wooden boards creaked under their weight. This was where cheese was meant to quietly age away from heat and light.
Jean-Claude led us under thick limestone archways into a dimly lit stone cellar, where a huge wheel of cheese, 3 feet/1 metre across, rested on a massive marble slab. He announced that we would be tasting the king of cheese, a three-year-old Comté made in the Jura Mountains. The cheese had a beautiful rind, fawn-colored with the feel of a sturdy felt hat. Behind the cheese, a dozen glasses were filled with a dry sherry the color of golden raisins.
Jean-Claude explained that Comté is made by many satellite groups of small cooperatives called fruitières, and that it has been produced in the same manner for hundreds of years. By the rules of the AOC—the appellation d’origine controlee, the French certification granted to a product such as cheese, butter, or wine that follows the traditions and geographic rules as set by the French government—the milk for the Comté cheese must come from a Montbéliarde cow. This breed is low to the ground and quite hardy, making it ideal for steep mountain regions. Farmers milk their cows twice a day and then take their milk to the fruitière, which is generally within 8 miles/13 kilometres of the farmer’s dairy.
When the milk reaches the fruitière, cheesemakers must make the wheels of cheese in the large traditional copper vats, and all of them must follow the same guidelines for cheesemaking procedures, the cultures, rennet, and cheese size. Usually eight to twenty dairy farmers work with each centralized cheesemaker. There are as many as fifty cheesemakers, each working with a cluster of farmers within the Jura region, and throughout the region there are 175 fruitières.
Even though the process is the same, each of those cheesemakers produces a cheese with a flavor profile that is slightly different from the next cheese. This makes comparative Comté tastings important to affineurs and brokers like Jean-Claude and Pascale. Flavors in the cheese change with the seasons because the milk flavors depend on what the cows are eating. The profile flavor traits, however, remain true to the fruitière.
The last element of production is the affinage, or the aging of the cheese. This takes space—Comté cheeses are heavy and large and require at least 10 months of aging—so cheesemakers work with affineurs who age the cheeses off-site. Affinage determines the quality of the cheese and is just as important as good milk and the cheesemaker’s skills.
Most of the Comté produced in this region is aged in old military forts on the peaks of the Jura Mountains. These stone forts are massive, and naturally cool and humid, so when they were abandoned in the mid-1900s, local cheesemakers recognized a better and higher use for them. The cheese we were about to taste was aged in one of these old forts, Fort St. Antoine. Just this fort alone houses more than eighty thousand wheels of cheese, and each wheel is turned and washed weekly. Prior to the 1980s, a team of workers was required to wash, brush, and turn each wheel of cheese by hand. These days, robots do the heavy lifting. The robots grab a cheese wheel off the two-story-high wooden racks and wash, brush, and turn each cheese before replacing it on the shelf.
We thought about this particular cheese’s life as Jean-Claude took out his cheese iron, a long thin metal wand. He used the handled end to lightly tap on the cheese, beginning at the outer rim and working in a concentric circle until he reached the center. He was listening for cracks or fissures that would indicate imperfections in the paste. The tone remained consistent, so Jean-Claude could assume the cheese had no apparent flaws. He plunged the iron into the middle of the cheese’s side, pushing until its tip reached the center of the wheel. He twisted the iron and slowly withdrew it from the cheese. He held up the iron to show us that it contained a perfect cross section of the Comté, from the rim to the center.
He inspected the cheese sample closely, then drew the iron under his nose, inhaling the cheese’s fragrance. He broke a snippet of cheese off the very end of the iron and gave that little piece a sniff, explaining that much of the flavor of the cheese comes from the aroma, which intensifies as the cheese reaches room temperature. To help this along, he lightly rolled the small bit of cheese between his thumb and index finger, noting its texture, and whether it felt smooth or grainy. When the cheese had been warmed by his fingers, he popped the small bit into his mouth and spread the cheese over his tongue as well as the roof of his mouth. He breathed in and out, waited a minute, then described the many flavors he tasted in this one tiny bite of cheese.
Jean-Claude passed out samples from the core for all of us to taste in the same manner. Even though we’d tasted cheeses for years, this method widened our experience in a way that was startling. We learned to detect waves of flavors and to pay attention to the subtle aromas and textures. Then we tasted again, this time with a sip of sherry. The sherry brought out the fruit flavors in the cheese, and the cheese highlighted the savory notes in the sherry. The aromas in the dim, damp cave, the way the enormous wheel of cheese filled the space, the flavors that rose and receded as we tasted—this experience still informs how we taste cheese.
Recipe Excerpt
Gougeres — makes 48 cheese puffs
There’s a kind of magic to a gougère, the way the cream puff dough puffs during baking and forms a hollow center. You can fill these with a savory herbed fromage blanc or with rich mascarpone cheese mixed with chocolate. We like to pile these high on a platter as part of a cheese board and buffet. They also make an elegant nibble with Champagne.
Gruyère makes these gougères tender and flavorful. You could substitute Comté or Emmenthaler or Pleasant Ridge Reserve—any grated Alpine-style cheese works well.
Choux Paste
1/2 cup Water
1/2 cup Milk
1/2 cup Unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1/2 tsp Sea salt
1 cup All-purpose flour
4 oz Gruyère cheese, grated
4 Eggs
Fillings
Roasted Garlic and Herb Spread (recipe follows)
Dark Chocolate Filling (recipe follows)
Preheat the oven to 400°F/200°C/gas 6. Butter a baking sheet (two, if you have another).
To make the choux paste: In a medium saucepan, heat the water, milk, butter, and salt. While the mixture heats, sift the flour into a large heatproof bowl. When the liquid comes to a boil, pour it over the flour and stir until combined. Stir in the cheese gradually with a wooden spoon, and give the mix at least 10 or 15 minutes to cool. Stir in the eggs one at a time.
Spoon the batter into a cone that you’ve made out of stiff paper or a reasealable plastic bag (snip off the corner after filling). To form the gougère, squeeze out the batter onto the prepared baking sheet into mounds the size of an egg. As you squeeze out batter, push the tip of the cone into the center of the mound and then lift, forming a peak on each gougère. Form a dozen gougères on the baking sheet, spacing them evenly. (If you have two buttered baking sheets, you can pipe out the remaining gougères on the second sheet while the first batch bakes, or pipe and bake both sheets at the same time.)
Bake until the gougères just begin to show some color on top, 18 to 22 minutes. Take them out before they get too brown. Transfer to a wire rack and let them cool for at least 30 minutes before filling them.
To fill the gougères: Spoon one of the fillings—either the savory or chocolate version—into a pastry bag fitted with a tip or into a paper cone. Gently push the tip into a baked and cooled gougère from one side and squeeze in a little filling. Repeat with the remaining gougères. If you don’t want to fool around with piping, slice a gougère halfway across from one side, taking care to not cut all the way through. Spoon in a little filling, and gently close the gougère.
Once you’ve filled the gougères, it’s best to serve them within 6 hours. They can get slightly soggy if kept any longer. If you’d like to make them the day before, you can. Store them in an airtight container in a cool place and don’t fill them until just before you plan to serve.
Roasted Garlic and Herb Spread
8 oz Fromage blanc
1 to 3 Large, roasted and cooled, garlic cloves (see instructions below)
1 tbsp Finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1/2 tsp Finely chopped fresh tarragon
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
In a bowl, mix the fromage blanc with the roasted garlic—how much roasted garlic you add is up to you; we opt for two or three large cloves, but you can add just one clove if you want a milder flavor—and the herbs. Season with salt and pepper. Serve at room temperature.
To roast garlic: Preheat the oven to 400°F/200°C/gas 6. Wrap as many unpeeled garlic cloves as you want to roast in aluminum foil, creating a packet. It’s best to roast at least 12 cloves.
Cook the cloves until they’re soft and squishy to the touch, about 20 minutes. Let the cloves cool for 30 minutes to 1 hour, then peel the cloves or squeeze out the garlic with your fingers and discard the peels.
Then you can mash the garlic with a fork or in a mortar and pestle, with a few grains of salt, to create a fine paste. If you don’t want to use this right away, spoon the garlic paste into an ait-tight container and cover with a thin layer of olive oil. This will keep in your refrigerator for weeks.
Dark Chocolate Filling
2 1/2-oz Chunk fine dark chocolate
8 oz Mascarpone cheese
1 tsp Ground espresso beans (not instant)
1/2 tsp Sugar
With a microplane grater, finely grate the dark chocolate over the mascarpone. Stir in the ground espresso beans and sugar. Refrigerate in a tightly covered container for up to 48 hours until ready to fill the gougère.
Red Hawk Variation
If you want to add cheese to your gougères before they bake, use two wheels of Red Hawk instead of the Fromage Blanc Spreads. Follow the recipe and while piping each gougère onto the baking sheet stop when the gougère is three-quarters size. Add 1/2 tsp Red Hawk (or just drop a small chunk of Red Hawk onto the piped gougère) and then finish piping on top of the cheese. Bake as directed.
