This generous, slightly battered wedge of fromage de brebis was brought to me by some friends who took a skiing trip to the Hautes Alpes in February.
Un vrai cadeau!
Tome Fleurie de Brebis has a heady mélange of flavors; rich and meaty and yeasty combined with a slight piquancy and a smooth nuttiness. It is a complex cheese, yet the flavors are well balanced and truly delicious.
It is produced from unpasteurized ewe's milk at the Fromagerie de la Durance. The gritty grey rind is the happy home to cheese mites, so I would recommend cutting it off before eating.
We tasted it with some local white wine, a blend of Marsanne and Roussanne grapes. Not a good match at all! Some white wine from the Alps would be much better.
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14 comments:
Do all cheeses with rinds like that have mites? I always cut off rinds on cheeses like gruyere but have never seen mites.
oh i'm excited to read more about your experience living in france ~ my husband lives on cheese
thanks for visiting and posting a comment on my blog
Your descriptions of cheese always makes me take a trip to the fridge to see what is there!! Diane
Great goddess of cheese, how does one know when it's safe to eat the rind?
Eh - what's a little added protein. I used to worry about stuff like that - after living here ahwile I gave up LOL
If the rind is hard to the touch and looks like it is made out of particle board I tend not to eat it, so that leaves cheese like Brie and Camembert to be safe.
This looks very interesting to try though.
Love your page of cheese you have tried!
The Wanderfull Traveler
canadianculinarytravel.blogspot.com/
I wonder if I could get a job as a cheese mite?
chcmichel
No, they don't.
Mimolette vieille definitely has cheese mites and some of the older Tomme de Savoie do, but I don't come across them very often.
christine
Thanks for stopping by!
Hope you find some new cheeses for you and your husband to try.
Diane
Nothing like some good French cheese to nibble on.
Betty
Great goddess of cheese? LOL
I avoid most hard rinds that look obviously inedible. Yet I've also watched some of our neighbors munch happily on the pretty scary looking (to me) rinds of Cantal vieux. Any soft rind is fair game in my opinion.
Does that help answer your question? :)
katie
I'm a lot less worried about things like that too. Living in France will do that to you!
Murissa
I agree with your rind test. Glad you're enjoying the cheese!
Christopher
I have a fromager you could apply with if you're interested...
Yes, I must say that is pretty much my approach. I do not eat Cantal rinds, for example...
Thanks for visiting me and for your nice comment! Your blog is a delight so I'm now your newest follower. Have a lovely day!
x Kristin
Betty
Me neither. They just don't look appetizing.
Kristin
I was very happy to come across your blog this morning and really love your photographs. Thanks for stopping by to comment. :)
et le verre de vin
About eating the rind, there is less risk (of any kind -bacterial, allergenic,...) than eating most other foods. In particular the paste of cheese (cause of the few cheese-originated listeria infections).
I could start a really long explanation with peer-reviewed references but instead:
I have eaten the rind of every cheese I have tried (well over 1000 in a 10 year period -plus those when I was littleI without ever any problem. So has my wife.
(I should say we are healthy, I have no allergy, and she has few. The typical lactose-intolerance problem with cheese is due to the paste.)
Eating the rind is a must for understanding cheese in depth, skipping it makes you lose a big part of the experience and is overall a negative approach in many respects. Plus, it supports misunderstanding of cheese, and food in general.
A cheese's paste may be better enjoyed without the rind, definitely, but then (please) cut the rind and eat it separately before. It is often enjoyable if only for the discovery, learning experience. Some rinds may be really good but just not combine that well with the paste, they often contrast undesirably, in gruyere the rind is very meaty, or if you want to melt it, or in a brillat-savarin it may be quite strong, pungent, and ammonia-scented but enjoyable on a different level, the rind of many washed rind cheeses turns bitter with time which definitely mars the experience of the paste, but is quite fun an introduction to actually eating the cheese -it is always small amounts.
Really, mimolette and their mites, gruyere, goudas (ok, you may carefully remove the wax... :), abbey, reblochon, goat, soft, pecorini, smear-ripened, manchegos (yes, the paint), saint-nectaire, tomme de Savoie,... please put the fun back into the rind, you will find how much you missed.
Of course you may still discard the rind if you know it and just want the paste, it's all a question of finding a balance, a matter of average attitude. But if you wonder whether to eat the rind (if you do not know how it tastes and fear it), then you probably should.
Paul
PS: And please Loulou, on this topic, do promote a more rational attitude toward food. I guess you are afraid that mean people sue you for some imaginary disease due to eating rind... But please at least do eat it yourself.
PPS: Your site is great, thanks for the work.
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