Showing posts with label Aveyron. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Aveyron. Show all posts

Bleu de Causses the Blue, Mild to Spicy, Creamy Cow’s Milk Cheese from Aveyron in the South.


from
Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman

behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com

 

Bleu de Causses
  
Bleu des Causses AOP is a semi-soft, 45% fat, cows’ milk cheese made with pasteurized milk. It is white to ivory with greenish-blue veins aged for at least 21 days before being sold. It has an earthy smell with a spicy, nutty taste and a creamy pate changing to slightly crumbly as it ages. Cheese shops keep this cheese in two or more ages to satisfy the pockets, tastes, and needs of their customers. A whole cheese will weigh over 2 kilos (4.40 lbs), but a wedge kept in aluminum foil and a vacuum pack kept cold in the hotel mini-bar will travel well for 24 to 36 hours. When home the cheese must be kept in the refrigerator, (never the freezer) in aluminum foil and plastic wrap. This cheese is made with pasteurized milk, and so it can be taken into the USA, but for more about buying cheese in France and taking them home click here.
   
Bleu de Causses

France has a large selection of blue cheeses made with cow’s, sheep’s or goat’s milk along with a few that are made with mixed milks. Textures vary from creamy to crumbly and tastes run the gamut of mild to very spicy. What boosts the Blue des Causses in the restaurants' popularity stakes is this cheese’s flexibility.  Many blue cheeses will age with a more piquant taste coming with age, but until you actually take them out of the cave or aging room and taste them, you cannot be really sure how spicey and or crumbly it is.  Bleu de Causses has its rind removed after the minimum aging of 21 days when it is replaced with aluminum foil.  That allows the cheese to be aged at slightly higher temperature cellars for up to six months and properly controlled its taste and texture changes like clockwork.
       
Map of the cheese making centers in the causses.
Home to some of France’s most famous cow’s, goat’s and sheep’s milk cheeses.

When a chef wants a light note that will not overpower a fish dish he or she will pick up the phone and ask for a 21 or 30-day old cheese.  For a quiche, a 45-day aged cheese may be ordered, and for steaks the chef will ask for a 90-day aged cheese. The fromager, the cheesemonger who supplies the cheese, doesn’t need to taste it, the date stamp says it all. After120 days the Bleu des Causses will only be on the cheese trolley though the cheese’ aficionados know that five months will be better than four with the real mavens saying that the very best is six months old. N. B. Any older it begins to fade.

The Tarn Gorge seen from the Millau Viaduct
The Causses that gives this cheese its name are limestone plateaus in France’s Massif Central. The gorges are created by the rivers Tarn, Dourbie, Jonte, Lot and Aveyron running through the limestone and making for arresting scenery.
www.flickr.com/photos/allan_harris/2647320054/

The cheese comes from around the towns of Sainte-Afrique and Millau and they are just 28 km (17 miles apart) in the center of the department of Aveyron in the region of Occitainie. The department of Aveyron has two other AOP cheeses with Roquefort AOP sheep’s milk cheese being made just 11.6 km (7.2 miles) from Sainte-Afrique and the Laguiole AOP cow's milk cheese which is at the heart of many of the tastiest Aligots 120 km (63 miles) to the north of Millau.

Bleu de Causses will be on many menus:

Dorade Marbré au Bleu des Causses, Mascarpone aux Noix, Confiture de Courge Musquée - The striped seabream or sand steenbras prepared with the Bleu de Causses and Marscapone cream cheese with walnuts (France’s favorite nut) accompanied by a butternut squash jam. The striped seabream is caught in the Mediterranean as well being raised in sea farms, and it will be on many menus. Its taste is very similar to the Daurade Rose, the Bluespotted Seabream. While Marscapone is an Italian cream cheese don’t be surprised to see it on a French menu as there are many parts of France with strong Italian connections such as the city of Nice on the Cote d’Azur, and many Italian cheeses are close to the heart of French cuisine with Parmesan, the leader.
    
Faux Filet de Bœuf Sauce au Bleu Des Causses - The UK sirloin and the US strip steak grilled or fried and served with a Bleu de Causses sauce.  Faux-filet makes great steaks; they come from just below the French entrecote, the UK and US ribeye. 
   
US strip steak – The French faux filet
www.flickr.com/photos/edkohler/2196323585/
                              
Pièce de Boucher et sa Sauce Au Bleu Des Causses - The butcher’s cut served with a Bleu des Causses sauce. The pièce de boucher is one of four French cuts that are amongst the tastiest and tenderest of steaks from the rump. The French names for these cuts are Araignée de Bœuf, Merlan de Rumsteck,  Poire de Bœuf, and the Langue de Chat, and there are no English names. You won’t find anything like these tender and tasty cuts in plastic wrap in a UK or USA  supermarket, and the butcher’s outside who are willing to prepare these cuts are few and far between.
  
Tartare de Bœuf aux Noix et au Bleu des Causses A steak Tatar with walnuts and Bleu des Causses.
    
Steak Tatar
www.flickr.com/photos/hdv-gallery/7138285281/
   
Quiche au Bleu de Causses et sa Salade – Quiche made with Bleu des Causses served with a salad.  The origin of all quiches is the Quiche Lorraine in North-Eastern France now part of the region of the Grand Est and while they made all around the world the name is a direct link to their origins.
   
The Bleu de Causses was traditionally made from a mixture of sheep's milk mixed either with cow's or goat's milk, and it competed in the same market as Roquefort. Then as the producers and the government tried to make sense of competing demands for names and manufacturing secrets the cheese was made from cow’s milk that resulted in a milder taste than Roqueforte.  To the mavens, there is a slight difference between the Bleu des Causses produced in winter and summer. Cheeses made in winter are lighter in color than their summer as the cows are fed in barns with the dry grasses, herbs, and flowers from summer pastures that also results in a slightly drier pate; both versions have their admirers. 
  
The Millau Viaduct
www.flickr.com/photos/jaapv/42932279492/
 
The town of Millau stands out among those traveling in the center of southern France as the Millau Viaduct is the tallest bridge in the world is here.   At 336.50 meters (1,106 feet) high the Millau Viaduct is the quickest way via an AutoRoute from Paris to Barcelona and places along the way. The bridge spans the gorge valley of the River Tarn though many traveling south enjoy the scenery rather than the autoroute and then connect to the bridge.   The whole area is beautiful and a stopover in the towns of Sainte-Afrique, Millau, Roquefort and or Laguiole will introduce you to some of the tastiest parts of France and the local wines are recommended with the red or rose Marcillac not to be missed.    
  
Marcillac Rose

-----------------------------------

Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman

 

behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com

Copyright 2010, 2019.

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Roquefort Cheese - Roquefort Fromage AOP. The Roquefort Sheep's Cheese is The King of French Cheeses.

from
Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman

behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com

 

   
Roquefort cheese.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/milstan/5304118608/sizes/m/  FF

What makes the Roquefort cheese special?
    
This cheese is the famous, blue-veined, semi-soft, 33% fat, sheep's cheese, made with unpasteurized milk.  It has a medium to strong flavor and has no rind.   It is slightly pungent, crumbly, and somewhat moist.  The cheese comes from the village of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon in the department of Aveyron in the Occitanie. 

This is the cheese that many call the king of cheeses and was the first cheese to be awarded an AOC (in 1925),  and that was before the first wine carried those initials.  The cheese is aged for five months before it may be sold in the natural damp, aired caves that are close to the village.

Roquefort is one of France's oldest known cheeses; it was probably already appreciated by the Romans when they occupied France in 121 BCE.  Roquefort is not unique because it is a sheep's cheese or because of its age; however, it is unique as it is the first recorded blue-veined cheese inside or outside France.
   

Roquefort cheese aging.
Photograph courtesy of Per-Olof Forsberg FF

Comparing Roquefort and the other blue cheeses.
   
When discussing blue cheeses Roquefort's name will always come up and I read an article recently where Roquefort was compared to English Stilton. However, Roquefort and Stilton are not the same at all!  Their tastes and texture are very different. Even more to the point, Stilton is a cow’s milk cheese and Roquefort is a sheep's milk cheese.   Both are excellent blue veined cheeses and much appreciated on their own or with a glass of Port and a few grapes but there the similarity ends. 
   

The village of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon
    
The village of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon may have given its name to the cheese but today since there are less than 700 inhabitants in Roquefort-sur-Soulzon you may be sure that most of the farmers come from outside the town.   The cheese is ripened in the local limestone caverns called Causses; these caverns are part of the Parc Naturel Régional des Grands Causses.  You may visit the park, with its mineral and hot springs and see the limestone caverns. For a few Euros you may try the cheese and or buy one. If you speak French you may still have some difficulty listening in on the local’s private conversations that is because many of them, amongst themselves, speak the local Occitan dialect, the traditional language of the area.
     

Entrecote with Roquefort Sauce and French Fries.
   

The Grands Causses Regional Natural Park has an English language website.
 
https://www.parc-grands-causses.fr/en
 
When in the area you will also find other local blue-veined sheep’s cheeses on sale. They are not made in Roquefort-sur-Soulzon and have no AOP on their label; however. some are very good, and they are also much less expensive! Do not forget that within the Midi-Pyrénées there are many excellent cheeses and three more that hold the AOP grade. These are the cow’s milk Bleu des Causses. the cow’s milk Laquiole,  and the goat’s milk Rocamadour.
   

Salad with Roquefort and walnuts

   
If you are looking for a local wine to accompany your Roquefort cheese, consider the Entraygues-Le-Fel AOP and Estaing AOP  these are whites, roses, and reds that were probably originally planted in Roman times.
   

Entraygues Le Fel AOP

Also, try the red and rose Marcillac AOP wines.  This is a wine brought to the Mediaeval village of Conque 125 km (78 miles) away from Roquefort by the monks who also saw their abbey become a major stop on the Saint-Jacques de Compostelle pilgrimage on the way to Spain.

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Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman

 

behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com

 

Copyright 2010, 2016


Laguiole AOP Cheese. One of France's finest cheeses.

from
Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman

behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com

 


Aged Laguiole cheese.
Photograph courtesy of Céline MOSNIER
www.flickr.com/photos/hirondellecanada/3073174098/

Laguiole AOP is a 45% fat (30.5% dry weight), hard, unpasteurized, cow's milk cheese; it has a light golden color with a pleasant smell and a light, slightly fruity taste. The cheese is aged from 4 to 24 months. From a blind tasting of a six-month and an 18-month Laguiole AOP, the younger cheese was excellent, while the 18-month-old cheese was more like an aged cheddar with a slight bite.


The Aubrac cow.
Photograph courtesy of Olivier Bacquet
www.flickr.com/photos/olibac/6008729138/

The Laguiole AOP cheese may only be made with milk from the Simmental and Aubrac cows. The cows graze freely for seven months a year on the Aubrac high basalt plateau between 800 and 1400 meters for close to seven months a year. In the winter, the cows are brought into barns and fed on the grasses and wild herbs collected from the Aubrac plateau during the summer. Milk production and refining of cheese must be carried out in the geographical area of the Aubrac, where less than 80 farms in the departments of Aveyron, Cantal, and Lozère are authorized to provide milk for this cheese. The cheese is named after the village of Laguiole. (The village and the cheese's name Laguiole AOP is pronounced is lay-ole, do not pronounce the g). 

There are another eight AOP cheeses linked to the Aubrac Plateau, and they have their own French language websites. These unique cheeses are Laguiole, Salers, CantalFourme d'Ambert, Pélardon, Rocamadour, Saint-Nectaire, and Bleu d'Auvergne).


The village of Laguiole.
Photograph courtesy of lns1122
www.flickr.com/photos/minijoegreen/21512662653/

Buying Laguiole Cheese

Should you decide to take a whole Laguiole AOC cheese home from France, you may encounter some difficulties; the smallest cheese weighs 20 kilos, and others weigh up to 50 kilos. I imagine all airlines would appreciate the extra income when you bring one of these cheeses as excess baggage. To avoid problems, buy a large wedge, maybe one kilo, and pack it well in a plastic bag. Where possible, buy from a professional fromager, a cheese shop, since most offer packaging in vacuum bags and may well provide a taste of a mature cheese as well. However, as this is not a soft cheese, it will travel well even if the bag is not vacuumed. Once home, keep this and all hard-yellow cheeses wrapped in plastic wrap in a refrigerator, but not in the freezer. When you open your cheese and cut a wedge, an hour before serving, rewrap your cheese and return it to the fridge; it should keep well for 8 -10 weeks if you let it last that long. Laguiole, the village, is in the department of Aveyron in the administrative region of Occitanie. For more about buying cheese in France and taking it home, click here.


Aligot.
Photograph courtesy of Tavallai
www.flickr.com/photos/tavallai/5850019237/

One of the most popular dishes made with Laguiole is Aligot, a traditional, very tasty, potato, and a cheese-based dish made in Aveyron with a young Lagouille cheese or an unsalted Tome (Tomme) Fraîche d'Aubrac. For Aligot, the cheese is mixed into mashed potatoes along with garliccrème fraiche, milk, and butter. This combination is carefully stirred until long threads of cheese and potato may be drawn from the pot. The Aligot will usually be served with a small, pork, salami type sausage. In an upscale restaurant, the Aligot may have slices of beef added. (The original Aligot recipe is claimed as their own by two neighboring departments, Hérault and Lozère, and the cheese differs in each of the departments).


The ski station in Lagouile
Photograph courtesy of Tourism Aveyron.

There is more to Aveyron and Laguiole than excellent cheeses.

The Aveyron department is a beautiful place for fishermen and women as it has five major rivers plus hundreds of streams and tens of lakes. Aveyron will be on many menus throughout France including their Bœuf Fermier d'Aubrac, Label Rouge, their mostly free-range red label Aubrac beef-cattle. Also look-out for their Label Rouge, red label, Agneau Laiton de l'Aveyron, lambs between 70-140 days; that and Aveyron's famous veal, their Label Rouge, red label, Veau d'Aveyron et du Ségala I.G.P.  

The cutlery of Laguiole

Laguiole's village is also famous for "La Maison du Laguiole," the Laguiole knife's creators. Their knives, other cutlery, kitchen equipment, and their very individual corkscrews are appreciated worldwide. If you are in the area, worry not, they do have a factory outlet shop for visitors! Many French sommeliers, wine stewards, pride themselves on only using Laguiole corkscrews; this is the Rolls Royce of the limonadier type of corkscrew. The French for a corkscrew is Tire-Bouchon, the most famous of these French corkscrews in the "Limonadier," also called the Couteau Sommelier.


Maison du Laguiole “Limonadier”
Photograph courtesy of La Maison du Laguiole

The name Limonadier comes from its original users' trade, for whom this particular corkscrew was created, they were soft drink vendors. Three hundred years ago, most wines were not sold in bottles; they were sold in barrels, though soft drinks were sold in bottles, and sealed with a cork. When this corkscrew was created, only a few fine wines were corked, and 99% of the population never saw them. The Limonadier is the corkscrew with a lever to assist in pulling the cork out. The name came from the shops, also called Limonadiers, which were early 17th-century soft drink shops and also the name of the profession of those who sold soft drinks. These stores opened the bottles of the non-alcoholic beverages they sold with the corkscrew called the Limonadier. Three-hundred years later, The French national association representing café owners is still called the Syndicat National des Limonadiers. 


A Laguiole bread knife.
Photograph courtesy of La Maison du Laguiole

If you are visiting Aveyron

The local Aveyron Tourist Information Offices will give you a list of over 100 wineries, farms, dairies, and other local producers in the department who open their farms and wineries to visitors. N.B. When visiting most farms and wineries, a small contribution to the local economy is expected. You may also have the list sent to you long before you leave home and plan your visits.

The Aveyron Tourist Information English language website is:

http://www.tourisme-aveyron.com/index_en.php

I have intentionally avoided recommending restaurants, as chefs and menus change; however, in the case of the village of Laguiole, I have made an exception. If your credit card is in good shape, consider the two-star Michelin Guide restaurant, Le Suquet, above the village. Le Suquet is owned and run by one of France's true master-chefs, Michel Bras, and his son Sébastien who, since 2009, is in charge. Fifty years with the same chef and all those Michelin Stars is long enough to consider making a recommendation. In 2017 Sébastien Bras turned down their three Michelin stars saying he no longer wished to be included in the Red Michelin Guide and "wanted to give a new meaning to my life." Nevertheless, in 2019 Michelin returned two stars, Le Suquet is simply too good.

The Le Suquet English language website is:

http://www.bras.fr/en/

Wine in Aveyron

When ordering wine, consider the Marcillac AOP, the most famous red wine of Aveyron, and try the local IGP Aveyron (previously the Aveyron Vin de Pays). These wines include whites, roses, and red.

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Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman

 

behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com

 

Copyright, 2010, 2016, 2020 

--------------------------------

Are you searching for words, names,

or phrases on French Menus? 

Just add the word, words, or phrase that you are searching for to the words "Behind the French Menu" and search with Google. Behind the French Menu's links include hundreds of words, names, and phrases that are seen on French menus. There are over 470 articles that include over 4,000 French dishes with English translations and explanations.

------------------

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