cheese

Cheese

I had been invited to dinner to celebrate thanksgiving. I learnt many years ago that Americans aboard insist on celebrating this festival with the traditional dinner. I had no desire to go. Thanksgiving dinners of yesteryears were long buried in the past due to my advancing years. Nevertheless I had the annoying feeling that by refusing I would not only be upsetting my host but also it would be a slight to America that had been so welcoming to my family. The evening arrived. A taxi drove me to the address. There was much cheek kissing and condolences about my wife’s death the previous year. The dinner, with turkey, and trimming, preceded by a thanksgiving payer that set the tone of the evening. It was when the cheese board arrived I slipped out of my slightly disinterested state of mind by the conversation, the surrounding and the company. I look with interest at the cheeses before me.

At first I did not see the cheeses but saw the wild flowers carpeting the meadows of the Alps and animals being led into their stalls to be milked. This was followed by a vision of urns full of milk being carted off to the cheesemakers. Then another flash of memory saw the farmers enter on stage with their browned faces, the cheese makers dressed in white, and finally the cellars where the cheeses are matured. My next quick recall of memory were those glorious markets where the cheeses are displayed with love and care.

All these images of the past temporally crowned into my mind to be completed by a quotation from one of the great French cheese mongers that was the inspiration that propelled me on a quest to know more about these products.

“ Cheese is the soul of the soil. It is the purest and most romantic link between humans and the earth.” Pierre Androuet

This quotation set me off on a lifetime love affair with French cheeses. My adoration was not only for their visual aspect, representing the many shades of autumn, their taste defining the distinct lands ( terroir) of France but for the genuine, kind and hard working people that are responsible for bringing their cheeses to our table.

Dear readers let me explain. I spent several years in New York involved in the financial markets. In my early fifties my family and I decided to return to France, my wife’s home country. In the first month while enjoying French food I fell in love with their cheeses. The different tastes and the daunting variety made me want to share my pleasure with the world. I had left America at that exciting time when the development of the internet was all the rage. Europe was in the throws of slowly accepting this new technology.

The question that burnt in my mind was could this new technology provide a world wide platform for extolling the extraordinary taste of these remarkable French cheeses and persuading people to buy them? First I approach the overnight fast delivery services. One carrier gave me the thumbs up sign. Armed with delivery aspects of an adventure of this nature I created a company with the son of a long standing French couple. Before the ship set sail we were confronted with packaging problems and creating a site that incited people to order. Once these hurdles were overcome we opened the site to the general public crossing our fingers that the orders would flow. I dealt with the financial and strategic aspect of the business, my younger partner with day to day operations.

The first two months were a disaster with only a few orders, mostly from America. Then in the third month as if someone in the heavens had looked kindly on our efforts we received 1600 orders in one day, followed by a similar amount over the next few days. We were in business and our cheeses were reaching people who would appreciate the extraordinary tastes of French raw milk cheese. As most of the orders came from America I would have to deal with the FDA. The mystery of someone in the heavens was the gourmet editor of the New York times that unknown to us had ordered a cheese board. Never had she tasted cheeses like this. My thoughts were interrupted by a voice.

“George, if you have finished with the cheese board please pass it over.”

“Just a minute while I serve myself. I am sorry you caught me lost in thought by my love for these products.”

As I quickly served myself. The ode I wrote about cheese was present in my memory.

An ode to cheese

Every time I see you gloating on plat

Showing off autumn's colours and particular shapes

My head spins; my taste buds awake

My eyes brighten with contemplation

My pulse quickens with expectation

My nose tickles with anticipation

Dare I touch your velvety coat?

Maybe just a gentle poke

Dare I slice you to the heart

To glory at your essential part?

Dare I take just one taste?

Oh! My love, will I be swept into pastoral lands

Meadows dressed with mountain herbs

Grasses growing rich from spring rains

Weather patterns playing on the fields

Cattle grazing in nonchalant pose

Milk spilling from earthenware urns

This is your history and much mor

Your form and shape are well defined

Your texture and colour always refined

Sometimes you are streaked with blue

Roquefort, Fourme d'Ambert or Bleu de Gex

Sometimes your odour is sensationally strong

Are you Maroilles, Salers or Munster?

Then, my love, your seductive power

Is but dulcet sonnets to my nose

Sending rhythms down to my toes

Now to taste

I take my time, lingering

Subtle, savoury, with a distinctive tang

Is this Camembert, Charolais, or Chabichou?

Goat, cow, or ewe?

Are you from the snow-capped mountains

Or the sun blessed plains?

You guard your secret well

But, by your taste I know

Artful as you are

Cunning, tantalizing and sensuous

My love, I detect distinctive signs

In the upper reaches of my palate

In the lower register of my tongue

I sense your secrets; I find my pleasure

You are without comparable measure

If only I could find some wine

All would be sublime

I passed the cheese board. My first taste of the cheeses was disappointing. They had just been taken out of the fridge and not allowed to breathe for a few hours at room temperature. A great pity as they were well matured. At this point in the evening my good friend Bernard turned to me and said.

“ I seemed to remember George some years ago you had something to do with cheese,”

“You are right Bernard, in fact I founded, with a French friend, an internet cheese company that shipped these wonderful French raw milk cheeses to customers throughout the world. When I see a cheese board the memories of that period come flooding back.”

Bernard addressed the table.“If everybody is in agreement, tell us a few of the interesting and funny incidents that happen with this company.”

There was a general mummer of consent.

“We had the company for twenty two years so you can imagine there were many noteworthy incidents. Let me relate a shortened version of a few. Incidents. But probably the most enjoyable and interesting part was being in continual contact with people dedicated to their livestock, their traditions and producing tasty cheeses. In the second year we won the prize of being the best gourmet commercial internet site in France. This was celebrated by a dinner with Joel Rubuchon one of the world’s great chefs. He became a great supporter of the company resulting in many tastings in his private kitchen.

In the early days we struggled with delivery allowing the cheeses to arrive in perfect condition. In the heat of a Texan summer we had a message from a customer telling us it was impossible to distinguish one cheese from another all had melted in the heat. The final answer to this problem was delivering the cheeses protected by a cold pack.Each year the French have in Paris the International Agricultural show with a cheese tasting competition every second year. The cheese competition awards three medals, gold, silver and bronze to a selection of raw milk cheese from the various departments of France. It is a blind tasting by six to eight selected judges for a particular cheese that gathers round individual tables on which the various cheeses are presented. Before the tasting starts it is an extraordinary site to see about 150 individual tables laid out with eight cheeses of the same family waiting their turn to be tasted. There is, of course, a bottle of wine on the table. It is a serious and solemn morning as the gold medal represents over 25% increase in their sales. My partner and I were selected many times to be amongst the 300 judges required for the competition.

I think this short walk down memory lane is enough for a pleasurable dinner amongst friends. This relationship with cheese enriched my life and brought me into contact with a number of people that dedicated their lives to continuing the tradition of making raw milk cheeses. Unhappily I notice large industrial companies making cheeses with their sophisticated methods of influencing taste are slowly dominating the marketplace. If any of you have a question I would be delighted to reply.

“George ,I gather the company had a large healthy American clientele. I always understood the FDA has very rigid rules against raw milk cheese.“

“Henri, this is true. The majority of our customer base were Americans. Over the years we have had a few discussions with the FDA. As our customer base was mostly individuals, their concern of importing raw cheese was tempered as our cheeses would not be destined for the major distribution centers. But I do think on occasion we sailed too close to the wind. We probably had more annoying incidents with customs.”

George your favourite cheese?

“Probably a Roquefort, but I have to admit there are a few challenges. I would like to close this discussion with a quotation that goes back a few hundred years.”

Rest with me on green foliage; we have ripe fruit, soft chestnuts and plenty of fresh cheeses. Virgil 42 BC

I left the dinner party with a profound thanks to my host. As I left I whispered in her ear. “ You made an excellent choice of cheeses but for them to truly seduce the palate take them out of the fridge three hours before serving.”