Today, we go in search of French cheese. Of course, we could just pop into
Wait-rose or EH Booth. But, as well as lacking ambition, that doesn’t really
get to the heart of the matter – which, as far as fromage is concerned, is a
very deep place indeed.
In Britain, cheese is, traditionally, the stuff we eat once we’ve taken off
the Cellophane and unstuck the slices. In France, it is a pillar of
civilisation. There are between 250 and 1,200 different sorts (depending on
what you allow as “a different sort of cheese”).
So, it’s a regional as well as a national symbol, part of what different
French people think themselves to be. They can talk about it until you long
to clout them with a churn. Yet, somewhere, they’re right. With much food
now dropping off conveyor belts, and braying hygiene battalions demanding
that every last drop of milk be pasteurised in the interests of worldwide
neatness, it’s good to know that some farming men and women still value
distinctiveness and aromas that could fell a brontosaurus.
It’s good to visit them, too, to get to grips with the subject properly. They
need all the allies they can get in the battle against industrial dairy
plastic. They’re also to be found in some of the remotest, greenest and
loveliest bits of France. Here are five of our favourites. All have an AOC
(Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée), which, as with wine, means that the item
has to come from where it has always come from and be made as it has always
been made. All will be glad to see you (and your money). Naturally, they
might still drive you crackers with purple prose. You’ll just have to live
with that. We’re travelling north to south.
CAMEMBERT
Lush, behedged, undulating, speckled with apple trees and half-timbered
farmsteads: if you were a cow, Normandy is almost certainly where you’d
choose to graze away your days. Camembert’s name is in the public domain. It
can be made anywhere – Finland, New Zea-land, Ohio. But the real thing
(“God’s feet”, it has been called) must be made using untreated milk in one
of the five Norman counties.
Cheese strategy: almost all camembert is produced in dairies these
days. The Fromagerie St Loup (00 33-2 31 63 04 04), at St-Loup-de-Fribois,
is a good one to aim for. There is, however, one farm producer left.
François Durand’s Ferme de la Héronnière (02 33 39 08 08) is just along the
valley from the hamlet of Camembert itself, where the peasant Marie Harel
perfected the cheese recipe in the 1790s. You can show up to buy any time,
but proper, free visits are available in July and August. Take a cool box if
you don’t want the cheese to beat you home. Back in Camembert hamlet, the
Ferme Président (02 33 36 06 60, www.fermepresident.com;
£2) is a decent eco-museum introducing the full cheesy story.
Stay and eat: the plushest option is Château les Bruyères (Route du
Cadran, Cambremer; 02 31 32 22 45, www.
chateaulesbruyeres.com; doubles from £125 in low season, £150 high).
Here, in the Empire-period mansion or the next-door manor house, you’re some
way from peasant concerns. Dinner (from £40) might include camembert with
hot oysters. Les Fermes de Florence (Les Fonciers, Les Champeaux-en-Auge; 02
33 39 15 56, www.lesfermesdeflorence.com;
doubles from £100/£125, B&B), hard by Camembert hamlet, has
contemporary chambres d’hôte slotted into vintage bucolic surroundings. And
– listen to this – second nights are free, with third and subsequent nights
half price. Dine nearby at (of course) La Camembertière (Hôtellerie Faroult,
Les Champeaux-en-Auge; 02 33 39 31 87; menus from £11).
Getting there: the region is just a few miles from the ports of Caen
and Le Havre. Cross from Portsmouth or New-haven to Le Havre with LD Lines,
or try Brittany Ferries to Caen.
MUNSTER
My, but this is glorious country – west of Colmar, rising up through the
wooded Munster Valley to the mountain pastures of the Vosges, where alsacien
cattle spend their summer holidays. Here, food comes not as ornamental
decor, but in rustic platefuls that need to be wrestled into submission.
Munster cheese fits the frame. Open a brick-red ripe one to put on your
spuds and they’ll know about it in the next valley. Strangely, the taste is
less overpowering than the smell, though it’s still not for the prissy
palate. Alsace has had a strong, pungent history. This is the cheese that
goes with it.
Cheese strategy:Dany Roess will show his farm, cheese-making and
arresting views, just after Soultzeren. You can stay on site, too, at the
farmhouse B&B (4 Lieu Dit Oberer Geisberg; 00 33-3 89 77 02 09, www.chezchantaletdany.fr;
doubles from £42). A little further south, but also loftily placed, is the
Ferme du Saesserlé (Breitenbach; 03 89 77 49 46). Margot and Jean-Martin
Kempf do the cheese business on weekdays – and they do lunch nearby.
Stay and eat: the Hotel Panorama (3 Route du Linge, Hohrodberg, Hohrod;
03 89 77 36 53, www.hotel-panorama-alsace.com;
doubles from £40, but consider those with balconies, at £59) is for folk who
appreciate mountains best from by the pool or behind a good table. Dinner
menus start at £18. Or you might eat at one of the marcairies – once
mountain shelters for shepherds, now summer farm restaurants. In the commune
of Soultzeren, Seestaedtle (03 89 77 41 42) and Gaertlesrain (03 89 77 44
77) merit attention. Look out for munster tourtes or roigabrageldi: potatoes
with onions, lardons, salad and munster. You’ll hike it all off tomorrow.
Getting there: the region is an hour’s drive from both Strasbourg and
Basel. Fly to Strasbourg with Air France (0871 663 3777, www.airfrance.co.uk)
or to Basel with EasyJet (www.easyjet.com),
Swiss (0845 601 0956, www.swiss.com) or
British Airways (0844 493 0787, www.ba.com).
Eurostar (0870 518 6186, www.eurostar.com)
has returns from Water-loo from £89pp, with a change in Paris.
EPOISSES
I read recently that époisses has a “sometimes intrusive character”. This is
like saying that a sledgehammer to the face might “occasionally be
distracting”. A well-aged époisses can clear a county. As with munster,
however, the taste is more subtle and creamy than the nostrils are
suggesting. Good job. This is a Burgundy cheese, washed during ripening with
high-proof Marc de Bourgogne spirit. “The king of cheeses,” said the French
gastronome Brillat-Savarin. (But he also said: “A meal without cheese is
like a beautiful woman who’s missing an eye.”)
Cheese strategy: it’s in the less familiar Burgundian north, between
Semur-en-Auxois and Châtillon-sur-Seine, that Caroline and Alain Bartkowiez
will welcome you to their Marronniers farm, at Origny-sur-Seine (00 33-3 80
93 85 04). Nearer the beaten track, on the N74 Côte d’Or wine route just
south of Dijon, the Fromagerie Gaugry (Brochon; 03 80 34 00 05, www.gaugryfromager.com)
is a family-run dairy with free visits whenever the shop is open. On
Saturday mornings, there's a guided visit with cheese and wine tasting at
9am (£5.80). Book ahead.
Stay and eat: Semur-en-Auxois is a belting medieval town, floating high
above the river on its cliff. Its best hotel may be modern, but not
everything in France can be ivy-clad. And the Hostellerie d’Aussois (Route
de Saulieu; 03 80 97 28 28, www.hostellerie.fr;
doubles from £75 in low season, £83 high) fulfils its three-star role
satis-factorily. Good restaurant, too. Down towards Brochon, the Castel de
Très Girard (7 Rue de Très Girard, Morey-St-Denis; 03 80 34 33 09, www.castel-tres-girard.com;
doubles from £66/£79) is a stone mansion among posh vineyards, with
excellent cheese on the menu.
Getting there: Lyon is a two-hour drive. Fly there with EasyJet (www.
easyjet.com) or British Airways (0844 493 0787, www.ba.com).
The region is a five-hour drive from Calais; cross the Channel with Sea
France or P&O Ferries.
COMTE
Fruity, firm and honest, comté speaks unambiguously of its origins in the Jura
mountains, near the Swiss frontier. Up here, horizons are for ever, you
breathe free, and the russet-and-white Montbéliard cows crop mountain
meadows to supply the milk. The dairy farmers up here are better off than
any others in France – and they’ve got this mountainscape before them every
morning. Talk about a life.
Cheese strategy: we’re concentrating on the Lac de St-Point area,
between Pontarlier and the Mont d’Or, because it’s high, mighty and
beautiful. Best visit here is to the Fort St Antoine: once a real fort,
which proved even more useless than most French forts, it now houses 65,000
ripening rounds of comté in its stone vaults. Summer visits are on
Wednesday, Thursday and Friday at 9.30am; book at the tourist office in
nearby Malbuisson (00 33-3 81 69 31 21; £4.50). If you can’t make that, try
the Sancey-Richard Mont d’Or fromagerie, in Métabief (03 81 49 02 36; 9am;
free).
Stay and eat: there are two lovely, good-value hotel/restaurants near
the lake at Malbuisson. The Hôtel le Lac (Grande Rue; 03 81 69 34 80,
www.hotel-le-lac.fr; doubles from £46, or £54 with lakeview) is old France
with modern touches and two restaurants. Le Bon Accueil (Rue de la Source;
03 81 69 30 58, www.le-bon-accueil.fr;
doubles from £55) is a former farm reviewed for contemporary design tastes,
with simple rooms, big gardens – oh, and a Michelin-starred restaurant (from
£25pp, then steeply upwards).
Getting there: the region is about an hour’s drive northeast of Geneva.
Air-lines flying there include EasyJet (www.easyjet.com),
Flybe (0871 700 2000, www.flybe.com) and
Jet2 (0871 226 1737, www.jet2.com).
AUVERGNE CHEESES
I’ve taken several holidays in the Auvergne, because (a) nobody else does and
(b) the mountains suit me. They’re quite grand enough, punctuated with lakes
and forest, but they lack the threatening drama of the Alps. “Mon-tagnes à
vaches,” they call them – and, certainly, the ruffled upland greenery does
look naked if shorn of cattle. Which, in summer, it rarely is. It produces
five AOC cheeses, more than any other French region, but we’re focusing on
just two, bleu d’Auvergne and St Nectaire, because I like them best. The
blue, created in the middle of the 19th century when a peasant injected
rye-bread mould into his cheese, is sharp, creamy and less challenging than
other blues, because less salted. It’s wonderful in a salad. St Nectaire,
from the volcanic Monts Dore hills, is mild and nutty, and fits nicely in a
farmer’s hand.
Cheese strategy: bleu d’Auvergne is tricky to make, and there’s only
one farm-producing outfit left. It’s run by the Vergnol brothers at Les
Croix de Chazelle (00 33-4 73 21 19 28), by the gorges at Avèze, near La
Bourboule – a lovely trip and visit. Meanwhile, La Ferme Bellonte, 2,700ft
up in the lost hamlet of Farges, near St-Nectaire, has a full cheeseboard of
activities. Children can also do a treasure hunt round the hamlet, though
only in French. The on-site auberge has menus from £11.50 (04 73 88 52 25, www.st-nectaire.com).
Stay and eat: to mix cheese and accommodation – perfect, really – head
for the Ferme Randanne, at Aurières, east of Orcival (04 73 65 67 55, www.ferme-randanne.com;
doubles from £38). Here, down (or rather up) on the farm, they’ll tell you
all about St Nectaire, put you up simply and feed you amply for £12.50pp. Or
try the mountainside Marmotte de Sancy (158 Avenue de la Bourboule,
Mont-Dore; 04 73 81 15 75, www.sancy.org;
doubles from £59), which offers light, all-wood bedrooms and sustaining food
for £17pp. Le Buron de Dame Tartine (Route du Sancy, Mont-Dore; 04 73 65 28
40, www.auberge-dame-tartine.com;
doubles from £55) has new owners, lovely rustic decor in ancient stone
surroundings and a fondue with char-cuterie at £15.
Getting there: the region is between Lyon and Limoges airports – about
a two-hour drive from both. Fly to Lyon (see époisses), or Limoges, with
Flybe (0871 700 2000, www.flybe.com) or
Ryanair (www.ryanair.com).
Ferry contacts: Brittany Ferries (0871 244 0744, www.brittany-ferries.co.uk),
LD Lines (0844 576 8836, www.ldlines.
co.uk), Sea France (0871 423 7119, www.seafrance.com),
P&O Ferries (0871 664 5645, www.poferries.com).
