It’s the Quatorze Juillet back in France. A good day to write about cheese, no?

I haven’t been in Oxford very long, but I’ve already noticed quite an admiration for France – in culinary terms at any rate. Walk down the streets in the city center and you’ll come across many French-style bakeries selling croissants, crepes, baguettes…. Since I’m only in England for two weeks, I’m trying to avoid anything that I can find back home (except Dijon mustard – just couldn’t convince myself otherwise when it came to making salad dressing). This friendly “boycott” goes for cheese, too.

Thus, I headed to the Oxford Cheese Company (located in the Covered Market) to pick up some local cheeses. They have a wonderful selection and the young woman behind the counter was more than happy to point out her favorites. I ended up with five different types, and these two stood out as being especially worth trying:

Oxford Blue

This is an award winning blue cheese made from cow’s milk – and not nearly as strong as French Roquefort. It’s soft, creamy and has a salty tang. This is a fairly new cheese, created in 1993 as an alternative to stilton – and still made in a Stilton dairy.

Marksbury Cheddar

The first cheddar originated in Cheddar Village in the county of Somerset, England. There is record that it was being made (and purchased by the King) back in the 12^th century. Check out the British Cheese website for some interesting history – including the fact that Henry II once purchased 10,240 lbs. of it!

Marksbury Cheddar (from Somerset) is among the best cheddars I’ve ever tasted. It’s fairly strong and sharp. Although it’s a hard cheese, it seems to melt in your mouth. It really tastes like it came directly off a farm in England!

The cheddar was especially nice with the malt bread I picked up (a common find here in England).

Address:

Oxford Cheese Company

17 The Market
Oxford OX1 3DU
Tel: 01865 721 420

Amboise, a small town in the Loire Valley, is known primarily for its overbearing medieval castle- once home to some of France’s most famous rulers, as well as to Catherine of Medici’s ten children!

Amboise is also renowned for Clos-Lucé, the stately home where Leonardo da Vinci (invited by the French King Francois I) spent the last years of his life.  We recently discovered that Amboise is also noted for it’s Sunday morning open-air market- for us, this meant the discovery of some new cheeses and cheese desserts.

At first I thought it was a mistake- that the unidentified food item sitting on the vendor’s booth was burnt, really burnt. Turns out, that’s the way a tourteau au fromage is supposed to be. Made from thick, creamy fromage blanc this cake is originally from the Poitou-Charentes region of France. Outside, it’s round and looks like a turtle shell, or rather a crab shell (in French, a tourteau is a large crab). Did I mention it looks like a burnt crab shell? Inside, it’s light, airy and slightly sweet. We were told we could eat this delight either with an aperitif or for breakfast- it didn’t actually make it that far.

The next foodie adventure was camembert au Calvados- basically soft cheese soaked in alcohol and then covered in bread crumbs. Calvados is a brandy made of distilled apple or pear from Normandy. I had trouble deciding if I actually liked this cheese or not- it was smooth and creamy like ordinary camembert, yet had a very strong kick, thanks to the Calvados. We ended up saying, “It’s different.” Definitely worth trying, but might not make regular appearances on the cheese platter.

Next post: Still in the Loire, but this time…chocolate in Bracieux.

Though I was hopeful for spring with my last post, this week’s on-and-off flurries of snow have officially confirmed that winter is not yet over.

In fact, this has been the strangest, coldest winter I’ve experienced in Paris so far.  Today, alone, has been proof of divine indecision: one minute, unbelievably large snowflakes are floating in the air; the next, the sky is clear and blue; and, then, it’s masked in grey, bone-chilling cold.

Whether you’re just visiting or actually living in Paris, one of the coziest escapes from the weather is shelter in one of the capital’s endless array of wine bars. Just recently, we discovered one that was especially inviting- and hidden away from any tourist crowd.

Le Rouge et le Verre is located in Paris’ 9^th arrondissement, not too far north of the Palais Garnier opera house and right near the church Notre Dame de Lorette.  This area may not get the same attention as the neighboring 1^st and 2^nd arrondissements (home, for example, to the Bibliothèque Nationale, Place Vendôme and the Louvre), but I enjoy walking around its somber streets and stepping into its cafés/bars for the unexplored, authentic atmosphere I always feel.

Soon as you walk in this cave à vin, your eyes roam the rows of wine bottles lining the walls (arranged by region and identified with rustic wooden signs, of course).  The atmosphere is relaxed and friendly- with most customers coming in to ask for pairing advice and purchase a few bottles.  In the evenings between 5pm and 8pm, however, you may enjoy a glass of wine and a plate of cheeses or charcuteries.  This is where I was introduced to a monastic cheese from Brittany called “Timanoix.”  A semi-hard cow’s milk cheese, it’s made with nut liqueur which gives it a pleasant, almost smoked and nutty flavor.        

As for the wine, Sébastien and I each ended up with a glass we’d now recommend.  With my cheese, I took a 2005 Margaux, Les Gondats de Marquis de Terme (the young man helping us said this hearty red wine would go well with the meat plate as well).  Sébastien opted for a 2007 Irancy, Domaine Heimbourger, a light and refreshing white wine.

For anyone who likes oysters, it’s the season to enjoy these, too.  You can either take them to go (sold out front) or sit and eat them with a glass of wine.

Address: 8, rue Maubeuge (9^th)

Telephone: 01 48 78 68 43

Metro: Notre Dame de Lorette

It’s snowing again, by the way…

It all started with the bourru wine I talked about in this post.

Thanks to my sister, last weekend we got the chance to visit a seventh-generation, family-owned vineyard in Cour-Cheverny, a small rural town near Blois in the Loire Valley.  After writing about bourru, Sébastien and I were wondering if it was only a tradition in Bordeaux to drink the fermented grape juice that hasn’t yet been turned into “real” wine.  On our visit to the Domaine de la Marigonnerie, we had the chance to taste the Loire Valley equivalent, bernache, right out of the fermenting vat.

Drinking this sweet, cloudy, fizzy grape juice wasn’t only special because we were able to see first-hand how wine is made, but also because we tried a couple different kinds.  My favorite was the one made from the rare cépage “romorantin.” Also the name of a nearby town, this is a grape variety that was originally brought to the Loire Valley from Burgundy by Francois I in the 16^th century.  Today it is only cultivated in this region.

Of course, “bernache” wasn’t the only wine we tasted.  We especially enjoyed the AOC Cour-Cheverny, Cuvée “vieilles vignes”- a full-fledged dry white wine made from 100% “romorantin” grapes. We were told it would pair especially well with spicy foods- of course, the adventurous New Mexican in me liked that idea.

We also enjoyed the AOC Cour-Cerverny, “Cuvée tardive”- a vin moelleux. “Cuvée tardive” means that the grapes were picked later than for a dry wine and, therefore, have a higher sugar content.  It was interesting to taste the difference between the dry and sweet wines of the same grape variety.  Mr. Daridan, who runs the vineyard, joked that this wine would go well with Maroilles, a semi-soft cows-milk cheese made in the north of France and known for it’s very strong smell!  I’ll keep you posted as soon as we try that one.

For anyone who might be in the Blois area this December 5-6, the Daridan vineyard will be hosting an open house with tasting and sales of their wine and other local products.  Check their website for more details and directions- they may come in handy on the small dirt roads!

Next post: roasted chestnuts and white wine.

Autumn doesn’t only announce it’s arrival in France with colorful leaves, but with a very unique, very young, and slightly bubbly wine called bourru.

Driving on the outskirts of Bordeaux this weekend, I noticed several handwritten signs along the roads.  “Le bourru est arrivé,” wine merchants were announcing, inviting clients to purchase the juice from the first pressed grapes of the season.

A festive mix between grape juice and sparkling wine, bourru is an extremely young wine with a small alcohol content. Taken directly out of the barrel at the end of the fermentation process, it’s still full of carbonic gas and dregs.  You won’t find it in a traditional glass wine bottle and stopped up with a cork.  Instead, it’s sold in old plastic water bottles sporting pin-sized holes in their caps.  Since this energetic liquid is just at the end of the fermentation process, the hole in the cap keeps the bottle from bursting- not so easy to carry home!

Drunk cold, bourru is fresh, sweet and quite lively, thanks to the effervescent carbonation.

Bourru is sold at wine shops at this time of the year as a way of celebrating the vendanges (grape harvest) and is traditionally drunk accompanied by roasted chestnuts, another sure sign of autumn.

Even after a few days back in Paris, I still have vineyards on my mind

I spent one of my first years in France teaching English in a small town just outside the city of Bordeaux- in other words, surrounded by vineyard after vineyard.  There was even one I claimed for myself; I would see it everyday out the bus window on my way to work, so I figured I could call it mine.  I remember being fascinated by how the vines would change throughout the year.  When I arrived in October, the leaves were dressed in a breathtaking red and orange tie-dye.  I watched the vineyards go from this, to miniature stalks poking out of the winter soil, to springtime buds and finally covered in large bright green leaves and baby green grapes.  The funny thing is, I had never seen the purple grapes of late summer – almost ripe and ready to be harvested.

The grape harvest will start in September; in some places it will continue on into October- and then the cycle will start all over again.  Thinking about this made me wonder how long these vineyards have been around.  Since I’m such a fan of history, I got out some books (and launched an Internet search) to find that “French” wine has been around for just about as long as France has- it only makes sense, doesn’t it?

I won’t go through the entire history of wine, nor of France, but there are a few dates (all involving Aquitaine, of course) that I just thought were interesting.  If you’ve ever read Astérix (as every single French person probably has), you’ll know what I’m talking about when I mention Gaul (Gaule in French).  This is what the Romans called France even before Julius Caesar set out to conquer it in 58 B.C.  The Gauls (Gaulois) were a Celtic people who came from Eastern Europe into what is now France, probably as early as the 9^th century B.C.  They are known to have occupied a large part of western Europe, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Black Sea.

Here’s where my interest gets sparked: Aquitaine, spreading from the Pyrenees mountain range to the Garonne river, became one of the three regions dominated by the Gauls (or Gallo-Romans, once they were under Roman authority).  Here’s a fun couple of words: Bituriges Vivisques.  This was the Gallic group that lived near Burdigala (Bordeaux).  These people made and drank a lot of beer (unlike today’s “Aquitani”), but they really appreciated wine- which was procured from abroad (i.e. Italy).

Now, I’ve read two contradictory pieces of information: (1) the Romans planted the vineyards in Bordeaux and (2) vineyards already existed in Bordeaux when the Romans arrived.  I’m going to vote for the latter since I usually cheer on the underdog, and because of this: I read that the Gauls were not allowed to plant new vineyards once under Roman domination.  Since they were known to be fairly resistant (to put it lightly), I assume they broke the rules.  Any 21^st century Cabernet drinker can be thankful for that.  Legend has it that the Bituriges Vivisques are the ones who planted the cépage “Biturica,” ancestor of the modern Cabernet.  It was probably brought from somewhere between Albania and Greece and might have been cultivated as early as the 1^st century B.C. (before, during or after the Gallic Wars, I wonder?).  This is where I wish I had a time machine to check out the details- and to see just how pungent their wine might have been.  In any case, this grape variety was special because it resisted the cold (compared to Italy) climate.  The “Biturica” was, thus, the first grape variety cultivated in Bordeaux, and probably among the oldest in France.  (Side note: Before sitting down to write this, I was happily set to say the Bordelaise were growing grapes long before the Burgundians.  I can probably stick with the “before,” but might have to cut out the “long” based on this article.)

Obviously I don’t have a time machine, thus don’t have proof of what the Gaulois were doing over 2,000 years ago.  I do know, however, that vineyards were among the most important agricultural resources and were spreading abundantly during Gallo-Roman times, notably in the Bordeaux region.

I didn’t even get to writing about the other date I found interesting: 1152- the marriage between Eleanor of Aquitaine and Henry Plantagenet, future king of England.  Given my ongoing obsession with the Middle Ages and the potential length that post could go, I’ll save it for another day.

The result: a unique combination of strong, slightly salty cheese and light, aromatic wine.

I didn’t think I would be a fan of sweet wine, but am always open to trying something new, especially if it’s a little out of the ordinary. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the Jurancon moelleux (Domaine de Cauhapé, Ballet d’Octobre 2007) we brought home was different than I had expected. Since I’m still learning about wine, I try to pay attention to everything when I taste a new one: the oeil (literally, the eye), the nez (the nose) and the bouche (the mouth). In not-so-literal English: the color, the smell and the taste. While I’ll let you discover the hues and bouquet on your own, I must say I appreciated the nice balance between the sweetness and acidity of this wine. At first, I noticed a tropical taste, reminding me of pineapples and mangoes. Then the intense sweetness faded away and the final seconds before swallowing were reminiscent of the dry white wine we had previously tried from the same vineyard. Like the wine merchant, I’d definitely recommend pairing this vin with a blue cheese, such as Roquefort, for the lively contrasts they create.

For those who are curious, Roquefort is made of raw ewe’s milk and there are several different kinds. We happen to enjoy the rich, creamy taste of Roquefort Papillon Rouge. There is a village in southern France called Roquefort-sur-Soulzon (in the Midi-Pyrénées region) and, yes, this is where they produce the cheese. I haven’t been there (yet), but would definitely be tempted to visit the caves where they ripen it. In other words, I’d like to see where Roquefort gets moldy.

Apparently, Obama didn’t drink any wine at dinner last Saturday night during his visit to Paris (so I heard on the local news). I wonder if he had any Roquefort?

Welcome to my very first post!

I opened the fridge today and realized, yes, I do indeed live in France. At 9 o’clock I wasn’t quite prepared for the whiff of hearty odor that was waiting for me behind the door- a mighty combination of chèvre, brie, Roquefort and Le P’tit Basque swiftly invaded my not-so-awake nostrils. First reaction: “Eeeek! What is that smell?” Second reaction: “Mmmm. The cheese (with a nodding smile). French cheese (with a long breath in).

I never thought I’d be the proud owner of a smelly cheese-filled refrigerator, but then again a mere five years ago I didn’t imagine I’d soon be living in Paris, drinking red wine and married to a Frenchman! Here I am.

In honor of almost five years in France (and the discovery that comes with living abroad), I’ll dedicate my first post to one of my new-found favorite cheeses. Le P’tit Basque, a semi-firm fromage made in the Basque region of southwestern France, has recently found a permanent place in our kitchen. I can’t help but image the green rolling pastures and sun-baked rooftops nestled below the Pyrenees mountain range as I bite into it’s moist texture. What’s original about Le P’tit Basque? It’s made of 100% ewe’s milk and melts in your mouth with an almost olivey, nutty flavor.

Sébastien and I first discovered it by chance about a year ago, while roaming the cheese stand at the local farmer’s market. We were about to head to Fontainebleau forest for hiking and a picnic. Nestled in among other tempting cheeses was a three-inch tall mini-wheel, covered in a reddish-brown basket-weave skin. We found this cheese is excellent for a picnic, whether eaten with a traditional French baguette or a more grainy, seedy loaf.

Given that Paris is cold and rainy in the wintertime, we put our picnics on hold and kind of forgot about Le P’tit Basque. My affinity for this cheese, however, was newly confirmed on a recent family visit to Bordeaux. Near the end of a five-course lunch (beginning with apéritif at noon and about to end with chocolate dessert around 3:00), out came the cheese. When I saw my old friend peeking out from under its label, I again couldn’t resist.

Wine and Cheese Pairing…

Whether on a picnic, enjoying the cheese after a traditional Bordelaise meal, or casually entertaining friends, Le P’tit Basque always goes well with the right glass of French wine. Like many sheep cheeses, this one is slightly salty and fairly strong (though much less so than feta, for example), so it needs a wine that accompanies it well. Given it’s unique qualities, I would suggest pairing it with a medium bodied, somewhat fruity red wine, such as a pinot noir from Burgundy. We recently tried one (Albert Bichot, Vieilles Vignes 2002) which had a delicate, almost cherry-like aroma that went especially well with this cheese. My very favorite pairing, however, has been with a Jurançon sec (Domaine de Cauhapé, Sève d’Automne 2002), a dry white wine from the Pyrenees foothills. The aroma is reminiscent of honey and the taste is fresh and subtly spicy.

This is one of the reasons I enjoy living in France, and decided to start this blog. There is always something new to discover, and to delight my taste buds!

Any suggestions on which fromage to try next?