Behind the French Menu

from
Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman

behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com

A Fromagerie
Photograph courtesy of Kent Goldman
https://www.flickr.com/photos/kentgoldman/3335977501/

The cheese buying lexicon is one-third
of the way down this post

Buying cheese in France to take home.

When I am flying home from France, with enough time for a last-minute stop in Paris or another city, I will go to an excellent French cheese shop; their signs will read "Fromagerie" or "Crèmerie." In a specialized cheese shop, I can buy cheeses rarely seen at home. Soft yellow French cheeses will be carefully selected, two kinds of cheese for the day after my trip and others for intervals of up to two weeks in winter and a few days in summer. Hard and semi-hard French cheeses will be bought after I have tasted and chosen a few; at least one will be a new cheese for me, one that I may consider adding to my regular favorites. All the cheeses will be vacuum-packed for traveling. All the larger French cheese shops offer vacuum packing, and that is essential for anyone traveling with soft cheeses and the only way to travel with certain slightly odorous cheeses. Cheese should never be frozen for storage or travel; with one or two exceptions, freezing destroys the taste of a cheese.

Choose your cheese.
Photograph courtesy of Rebecca Siegel
www.flickr.com/photos/grongar/7307868606

Where to buy the cheese you take home

Some large French supermarkets have serviced cheese departments with knowledgeable staff behind the counter; however, specialist cheese shops, fromageries, or crèmeries are where you are most likely to find well-trained English-speaking staff.

A few supermarkets have special cheese departments like this.
Still, in most fromageries, there is more choice and sometimes English speaking staff.
Photograph courtesy of m-louis .®
www.flickr.com/photos/m-louis/4438143579

France has nearly 1,000 registered cheeses, and some cheeses like Camembert may be produced in tens of dairies and farms. It could help if you had advice on buying French cheese to take home, and on a first visit, you may also require that advice in English.

Buying cheese can be similar to buying a wine with a name you know but from an unknown winery; then, a knowledgeable sales assistant's advice is essential. In the specialized cheese shops, they know their cheeses and the producers, and they will explain not only the difference in price but the differences in age and tast

In most cases, if you seem like a serious customer, you ask about most cheese sold in large wheels; you may be offered a taste of two seemingly similar kinds of cheese. Often that includes one cheese with an AOP label and another that looks strikingly similar but costs 25% less and lacks the fancy initial

Aging Gruyere Cheeses.
Photograph courtesy of Simon Bonaventure
www.flickr.com/photos/bonaventure/5489976484

Buying fresh white cheeses

Cheese shops sell fresh white cheeses within 48 hours from the day they are produced; however, you are not advised to take these home. To begin with, they don't travel well, and in many countries, the personal import of fresh soft cheeses is forbidden. As a rule of thumb, soft, fresh cheeses packed in brine, etc., are prohibited imports.

Buying soft yellow cheeses

Soft yellow cheeses, including yellow cheeses like Camembert and Brie. The farmer or dairy will have matured these cheese to a stage where a cheese shop may buy them. The cheese shop will then allow these cheeses to continue to mature until needed in their cool, temperature-controlled cellar. In France, soft yellow cheeses are sold by the day the customer plans to eat them. If you want cheese for this evening or a cheese that will be ready in three days, ten days, or three weeks, and request it, then in France, that is what you will receive.

Camembert De Normandie
Photograph courtesy of sunny mama
https://www.flickr.com/photos/130283013@N07/18090228351

The 60-day requirement
for importing unpasteurized cheeses into the USA.

Cheeses made with unpasteurized milk, and that includes many of France's best, are not allowed into the USA unless they have been aged for more than 60 days. The UK allows the entry of all French cheeses (as an ex-member of the European Common Market). However, for the USA, all is not lost; in the larger cities, French cheese shops offer some of the same cheeses made with pasteurized milk, mainly for export. Nevertheless, if you are buying a cheese made with unpasteurized milk that meets the 60-day requirement for the USA, make 100% sure that the box or label clearly notes the dates. No clear date, do not buy.

A baked Coulommiers
Photograph courtesy of Francis Storr
www.flickr.com/photos/fstorr/2142587930/

Checking what cheeses you may take home.

Always check your home country's customs website before buying cheeses to take home. Hard and semi-hard cheeses are commonly allowed, as are soft yellow cheeses like Camembert and pre-packed spreadable cheeses if made with pasteurized milk.

What cheeses may you take on the plane?

Do not pack any type of soft cheese in your carry-on!!! Soft cheeses are treated like creams and pastes, with only small quantities allowed in a carry-on. Make sure that the packaging is clearly marked.

How to store your cheese when you get home.

Cheeses that are not entirely ripe and still need a few days to mature when taken home may be kept in the refrigerator for a few days; there, they will keep but not mature. To mature a cheese, a cool cellar is all that is required. However, cool cellars are rarely available in apartment blocks, and even homes with basements can have cooling problems in the summer. Those who, like me, have no access to a cool cellar will always have a problem. In the winter, when the temperature is above freezing, above 11°-15°C (51° - 59°F) then, soft-yellow cheeses will mature on the window ledge. Any cool place that is not freezing or warm will allow your cheese to evolve and mature slowly over a few days.

In the summer, in France, I buy cheeses that will be ready two or three days after I return home and store them in the refrigerator, though I know they will not mature. I take the cheese out one or two days before serving, allowing them to rest and mature in as cool a place as I can find.

For those who have wine refrigerators

Acquaintances with wine refrigerators have shown me that these are an excellent alternative to a cool cellar, and most soft cheeses will mature at anywhere from 12 – 14 degrees Celsius (53 to 57 degrees Fahrenheit).

The books will tell you that certain cheeses need temperatures and different degrees of humidity to mature perfectly. However, a degree or two off the optimum will not matter unless your cheese purchases are a professional dairy project. In the wine refrigerator, set a small water bowl and refill it from time to time. That is all that is required for maturing cheeses for a period of up to one month. We are not professional cheese producers, but we can still mature cheeses for short periods and enjoy them. When I have found a place for a wine refrigerator that will not be in our living room or entrance hall, I will buy one.

French blue cheeses
Photograph courtesy of Jessica Spengler
www.flickr.com/photos/wordridden/2433047495/

Buying and storing hard or medium to hard cheeses

The buying and storing of hard or medium-to-hard cheeses are much less demanding than soft or semi-soft cheeses. Nevertheless, choosing a medium-to-hard cheese or hard cheese that you wish to take home will benefit from a cheese monger's experience when you buy. A hard cheese may be mature and ready to eat, but there are significant differences in taste, and cost, between the same hard and or medium-hard cheese, bought when it was young and aged for three months, and the same cheese bought when it had matured for twelve months or longer. This is where you ask you can request a taste of two identically named cheeses with different ages to make your choice; you may also be offered a similar cheese with another name. Most French cheese shops are used to customers asking for slivers of cheese to taste. When you reach home, these semi-hard and hard cheeses should be wrapped in plastic wrap and placed in a sealed container. Hard cheese well wrapped will keep well in an ordinary refrigerator, but never a freezer, for one or two months or longer.

About the cheese lexicon below.

Included in the lexicon are the words you may see on a French restaurant menu or hear when the server offers you a choice of cheese from a cheese trolley.

You will hear, or use, more of these words in a French cheese shop. I have included only the terms necessary for choosing and buying cheese and some suggestions based on my own experiences. With the words in this lexicon, 99% of all French cheeses may be purchased

Connected cheese posts
After the lexicon, there is a list of related posts with a number of popular French cheeses that give more in-depth detail.

Many French cheeses are available with more than one type of milk. Even at home, you can find Camembert and Gouda made with cow's milk or goat's milk on supermarket shelves. Reading the labels carefully and ask for more information will ensure your correct personal choice.

The Cheese Lexicon.

Brebis – Sheep's milk cheeses.

Bufflonne – European buffalo's milk cheeses.

Chèvre – Goat’s milk cheeses.

Vache – Cow's milk cheeses.

Á la Feuille - Cheese sold when wrapped in leaves.

Affiné – The term used for aged cheese. For cheeses, the affinage, the aging, does not mean the cheese was left on its own in a cold cellar or cave. Maturing cheeses are very well looked after; they are worried about, turned, patted, washed, dipped, and checked regularly. Some soft cheeses may be ready for sale in three weeks, while some of the best hard cheeses may be aged for up to two years; a few unique cheeses may be matured even longer. (Aged beef is called bœuf maturée).

Aging Comte Cheese from the Jura.
Photograph courtesy of Barney Moss
www.flickr.com/photos/barneymoss/9520659622/

Alpage (Fromages d'Alpages ) – Cheese from the mountains. On a menu or in a fromagerie, an Alpage cheese is not restricted to the Alps; any cheeses from the milk of cows, sheep, or goats grazing on the hills or mountains may be called Fromages d'Alpages. If the cheese is not named, it will usually indicate a local farm-made cheese.

Alpilles - The limestone hills of Provence. On your menu, the Alpilles may indicate any locally-farmed products that are raised and grown there. Sheep and goat farming is important in the Alpilles, and their milk produces many fine cheeses.

Assiette de Fromage – A cheese plate in a restaurant will come with a group of one to four cheeses; they will have been chosen for you.

The art of the cheese plate
A cheese plate with three kinds of cheese may be 10 grams (1/3 oz) of each cheese. Altogether that's maybe 30 grams (1 oz), and at the end of a meal, that's plenty.
(It's not intended to be a plowman's lunch).
Photograph courtesy of nelson suarez
www.flickr.com/photos/pochove/36154848032/

Beurre - Butter. Not all butter is the same, and France has three AOP butters. For more about French butter, click here.
Bleuté – Bluish. For example, a cheese described as gris bleuté has greyish blue streaks of color inside.
Brebis – An ewe; a female sheep; on your menu, brebis will indicate sheep's cheeses, and France's two most famous sheep's milk cheeses are, of course, Roquefort AOP followed by the Ossau-Iraty AOP
Bufflonne – A European water buffalo. Water buffalo milk, with its high-fat content and is a favorite for some special cheeses, including the original Italian mozzarella cheese. Today buffalo milk cheeses are both made in France and imported from Italy though 95% of all mozzarella is made with cow's milk.
Buche - A log. Many cheeses, especially goat's cheeses, are shaped like small logs, so the word buche will often be part of a log-shaped cheese's name.
Caillé - Cheese curds. Curds are part of the cheese-making process and may be sold as such before they are used to make cheese; curds have their own followers
Camembert - Camembert as an example of a soft yellow cheese with import problems. Suppose your home country's customs website explicitly forbids the import of semi-hard or soft cheeses made with unpasteurized milk. In that case, you may need to omit Normandie Camembert AOP cheeses and the best Bries from your shopping list. Despite that, French Camembert cheeses and other soft yellow cheeses made with pasteurized milk are available in France.

Two Camembert cheeses
One is an AOP; the other may be just as tasty.
Photograph courtesy of Michel Mass

Carré  - A square; the shape and the part of the name for some cheese names.
Chèvre – Goat's cheeses include many varieties where the taste and texture change noticeably over time, and to buy correctly, you will need a professional's advice. Goat cheese may be smooth and mild if matured for only seven to ten days; the same cheese matured for one month will have a completely different taste and texture, and many will have a bite. Matured goat's cheeses include some of France's best cheeses. To read more about one of France's most famous goat's cheese, read the post on Rocamadour or the Picodon AOP Goat's Cheese. The First Goat's Cheese to be Awarded an AOC. (Chèvre and Chevreau or Cabri have many meanings, click here).
Croûte, (La) - The rind of the cheese itself, most cheese rinds though not all, are edible; under the rind is la pâte, the cheese itself. For some cheeses, the edible rind adds a different taste plus texture, while for others, a small bite warns you off.
Crème Double - Double-cream cheeses have 30 % or more fat using the new calculation. Previously the fat content was calculated as a percentage of the fried weight; today, the fat content is shown as a percentage of the total weight of the cheese when you buy it.
When a cheese has over 40% fat, it becomes, in France, a triple-crème. On cheese packages, the fat in a French cheese in French is called the matière grasse, and that word with its percentage will be on the label.
Many visitors to France are shocked by the high-fat content of many of France's most beloved cheeses. Despite those numbers, consider, for a moment, how the French eat cheese. A serving of a cheese course in a restaurant with three servings may weigh less than 30 grams ( one ounce) altogether.
In a private home, a cheese course may be one or two kinds of cheese. Eat cheese like the French once or twice a week and less than 30 grams (1 oz) each time; then, you may enjoy high-fat cheeses and hardly make a dent in your total calorie or the saturated fat count. (For more details on how the fat content of cheese is calculated, see Matière Grasse).
Crème Triple – Triple cream cheese. Cheeses with more than 40% fat; (using the old method of calculation that was 75% fat). (See Matieres Grasse for how the fat percentage is calculated.).
Crémerie  - A cheese shop, also called a Fromagerie.

Choose.
Photograph courtesy of Marc Kjerland
www.flickr.com/photos/marckjerland/3956521264/

Dégustation – A tasting. Cheese shops may advertise a tasting; that doesn't mean they are free. Ask.
Déclinaison de Fromages – A selection of cheeses; this may include three or four cheeses served on a platter or a choice from a cheese tray or trolley.
Double-crème - See Crème Double.
Eau-de-vie - Fruit brandy. Many French cheeses are washed with fruit or wine brandy while they mature. Alcohol keeps mold away, while certain brandies made with young fruit, and wine brandies, are chosen for the slight taste or aroma they may add to the cheese.
Entre Deux – A description used for cow's milk cheeses translates as 'between the two. This description indicates cheeses matured for between three to six months. For an examples see the cheese Cantal.

Faisselle -   A perforated draining mold used for soft cheeses.  Also, the name, or part of the name, for some soft white cheeses.
Fait - A well-aged chees
Farandole de Fromage – The cheese trolley in a restaurant. The trolley may also be called a Chariot or Guéridon.
Fermier – A farmer. A fromage fermier is a farm-made cheese.
Feuilles  - Leaves. Cheeses sold á la feuille are wrapped in leaves
Fourme – The mold or form in which the cheese is made. Fourme is also part of the name of several French cheeses. An example is the Fourme d'Ambert AOP, a light-tasting blue cheese from the area around the town of Ambert in the Auvergne.
Fort  – A strong-tasting and strong-smelling cheese.
Frais or Fraiche  - Fresh.
Fromage á la Feuille - Cheese sold when wrapped in leaves
Fromage à Pâte Demi dure or Fromage à Pâte Mi-dure – A semi-hard cheese; similar to a young cheddar.
Fromage à Pâte Dure – A very hard cheese; hard like a Parmesan.
Fromage à Pâte Molle – A description for soft, yellow, soft-centered cheeses like  Camembert and Brie.

Fromages à Pâte Molle in a French cheese shop.
Photograph courtesy of Marc Kjerland
www.flickr.com/photos/marckjerland/3956521264/

Fromage à Pâte Pressée Cuite – These are hard cheeses such as French Gruyère IGP, Comté AOP, and Abondance AOP. These cheeses go through a relatively robust cooking process followed by pressing.
Fromage à Pâte Pressée Non Cuite – A pressed, but not cooked cheese. The description of the way a particular cheese is made. Cheeses prepared in this manner include the cow's milk Saint-Nectaire AOC from the Auvergne and the sheep's milk cheese the Ossau-Iraty AOP from Ossau valley near Béarn and the Iraty valley in France's Basque country.
Fromage à Pâte Persillée – Blue-veined cheeses. Many of the blue-veined cheeses from the region of Savoie, Savoy in the Rhône-Alps, have the word persillé in their name like the Persillé des Aravis. Famous blue-veined cheeses include the cow’s milk Bleu d’Auvergne AOP from the Auvergne and the sheep’s milk cheese Roquefort AOP from the Midi Pyrénées department of Occitanie.
Fromage à Pâte Pressée Cuite – These are hard cheeses such as French Gruyère IGP, Comté AOP, and Abondance AOP. These cheeses go through a relatively robust cooking process followed by pressing.
Fromage à Pâte Pressée Non-Cuite – A pressed but not cooked cheese; description of how a particular cheese is made. Cheeses prepared in this manner include the cow's milk Saint-Nectaire AOP from the Auvergne and the sheep's milk cheese the Ossau-Iraty AOP from the Ossau valley near Béarn and the Iraty valley in France's Basque country.
Fromage au Choix – Your choice of cheeses.
Fromage au Lait Biologique – Cheese made with organically produced milk. These cheeses must have a label clearly showing the mark AB, the initials for France's government-supervised, trusted, and approved green organic farm products; Agriculture Biologique.  (See the appendix Abbreviations, Labels, and Initials: AB).
Fromages Affinés – On your menu for the cheese course. Here a restaurant is offering properly aged cheeses. This may make the menu sound better, but it is unlikely that immature cheeses would be offered in any case.
Fromage Blanc - A name used for many soft white cheeses. Most of these cheeses are made from skim milk, which has no fat. In a restaurant or a French home, these cheeses are often served as a dessert, usually with added fruit, honey, or sugar, as they are somewhat bland on their own.
If the same cheese is available with goat's or sheep's milk rather than with cows' milk, you will have a tastier cheese. N.B. Soft white cheeses do not travel well, may not be carried as hand luggage on planes, and may not be imported into the USA.
Fromage de Brebis – Sheep's cheese.
Fromage de Chèvre – Goat's cheese.Fromage de Lait Cru – Cheese made with unpasteurized milk. Many traditional French cheeses are only made with unpasteurized milk though more and more have pasteurized versions for export.
In France, the absence of health problems from cheeses made with unpasteurized milk shows the high standard of cleanliness, inspection, and control over the herds of animals that produce this important product. The inspection of the herds and their milk is expensive and specialized. No other country will budget the sums required or invest in a nationwide inspection system as France has done.
Internationally, the unpasteurized cheeses' of France are slowly being recognized for their very high health standards, and hard cheeses are already accepted, but check your customs website anyway. In the USA, unpasteurized cheese cannot be imported unless it has been aged for more than 60 days.
Fromage de Lait Entière – Cow's milk cheese made with full cream milk. To be called full-cream milk in the European Union requires at least 3.5% fat in the milk.
Fromage de Vache – A cow's milk cheese.
Fromage de Vache et Brebis - A cheese made with the mixed milks of sheep and cows.
Fromage de Tête (Le) – This is not a cheese; this is a traditional slightly spicy meat product in the UK called brawn. This a traditional product with similar products made in many countries including the USA. Fromage de Tête is the French version and, as in the UK, uses up all the less popular parts of meat and creates an edible and tasty product. Fromage de Tête is French comfort food and will be on many bistro menus.
Fromage Doux – A mild cheese.
Fromage du Pays - Local cheeses.
Fromage Fermier - A farm made cheese.
Fromage Frais - Fresh cheese.
Fromage Persillée - See Fromage à Pâte Persillée.
Fromage Rapé - Grated cheese.
Fromage Fermiers– Farm-made cheeses.
Fromages Frais – Soft, white, fresh cheeses.
Fromage Gras – A cheese with a high-fat content. The fat in a cheese will be on the label as a percentage marked Matières Grasse.
Fromage Jeune – A young cheese. The term is generally used for mild cow's milk cheeses that have matured from just one to two months.
Fromage Maigre - A low-fat cheese with less than 20% fat.
Fromage Mi- chèvre – A mixed goat's and cow's milk cheese.
Fromage Persillé – see Fromages à Pâte Persillée.
Fromage Râpée - Grated cheese.
Fromager - A cheese maker.
Fromagerie - A cheese shop, also called a Crémerie.
Lait Cru - Unpasteurized milk.
Lait de Mélange - Cheeses made from a mixture of milk. This can be mixed cow's, goat's, and sheep's milk.
Louche  - The traditional ladle used to put cheese curds into molds.
Maître Fromager  - A Cheese Master. The title Maître Fromager is awarded to those few cheese experts who meet the stringent criteria and exams of the La Guilde des Fromagers, the French Guild of Cheesemakers. In France, there are over 1,000 registered cheeses and hundreds more that are unregistered. A Maître Fromager has to be a very knowledgeable individual. The responsibility of choosing cheeses, buying them, and allowing them to mature gracefully is a serious and expensive business.
The best French cheese shops are owned, managed, or advised by a certified Maître Fromager. Many restaurants with valuable cheeses on their menu will contract with a Maître Fromager to supervise the purchase and storage of their cheese.
Matières Grasse  - Fat. On a cheese package label, the words matières grasse will be followed by a number indicating the percentage of fat in a cheese.
New regulations in 2007 standardized cheese labeling, protect the consumer, and show a uniform method of indicating fat content. Since 2007 the fat content has been calculated as a percentage of the weight of the finished product. This change had little effect on hard cheeses as they contain little water, but soft cheeses like Brie and Camembert reduced their displayed fat content in line with the new rules.
Mi- chèvre - A cheese made with at least 50 percent goat's milk; usually, the balance will be cow's milk.
Pâte - The inside of the cheese, the part inside the rind we eat. The rind may also be edible.
Pâte Persillé - see Fromage à Pâte Persillée
Pavé  - The original meaning is a slab or something that is paved; a solid-sounding word. It will be on many menus that indicate particular cuts or shapes. Many cheeses made in flat, square, or oblong shapes often use the word pavé as part of their name; the cheese Pavé d'Auge from Normandy is one. (See Pavé d'Auge).
Petit Lait  - The whey, liquid left after the cheese has been curdled and strained; many low-fat cheeses are made with whey. The most famous French cheeses made with whey are the Tomme cheeses (with two letter ms). Farm-made tommes are available all over France. The most famous Tomme is the Tomme de Savoie IGP.
Persillé – Part of the name of many blue-streaked cheeses.(See Fromages à Pâte Persillée). Outside the world of cheese, persillé is a name used for dishes flavored with persillade, a parsley, and garlic mixture, and well-marbled beef may be called Boeuf Persillé. (See chapter P: Persillade).
Plateau de Fromage or Plateau de Fromages Assortis (Le) - A platter of assorted cheeses or a tray of various cheeses from which you may choose.
Ronde de Fromages – On your menu, this is the cheese course. Unless it is a cheese plate, an 'Assiette de Fromage' when it will be prechosen set of three kinds of cheese, you will be offered from six to twenty cheeses on a tray or trolley for you to choose from. You will be served small wedges, not chunks of cheese. The quantity offered may seem small; however, remember this is France, and the cheese is served after the main course and before the dessert; you probably couldn't eat too much cheese.
In private homes, the French may miss out on the desert and the fruit but rarely on the Ronde de Fromage; however, outside of special occasions, only one or two cheeses may bserved.
In the toe wns, you may see an advertisement for a Ronde de Fromages outside a fromagerie, a cheese shop; this is generally an invitation to a cheese tasting, possibly with one or two wines. NB: An invitation to a cheese tasting in a commercial establishment does not usually mean without charge. In French cheese shops, Cheese tastings are usually tastings of similar cheeses or limited to cheeses from a particular area. Rarely do you see tastings with a wide range of cheeses from all over France.
Tomme – All tommes, spelled with double m's, are skim milk cheeses, which means they are made from whey and are relatively low in fat. There are many tomme cheeses, and apart from their name, many have very different tastes and textures. Tommes fermier are farm-made cheeses, and unless you know the farm or a fromagerie that sells this specific farm's product, you may have trouble buying that same cheese again. All tommes were originally side products in the manufacture of butter; the farmers saw their incomes increase when they began making skim milk cheeses. Now many of these farmers spend more time making cheese than selling milk or making butter.

Tomme
Photograph courtesy of Javier Lastras
www.flickr.com/photos/jlastras/3735667564

Triple crème -Triple cream cheeses. (See Crème Triple).
Vache - A cow.
Vieux - Old. A description mainly used for cow's milk cheeses matured from six to twenty-four months. A Vieux Cantal AOC cheese begins with a taste somewhat similar to the taste of mature cheddar. After one year or even older, it becomes unique and difficult to compare. If I must indicate a taste, I would place it somewhere between a mature Cheddar and a mature Parmesan

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