Last Saturday, July 14th, was Bastille Day in France. It is a national holiday but not the French Independence Day as I thought until I did some research. It was a turning point for the French Revolution. The Bastille, an armory and prison in the center of Paris in the late 18th Century, was a symbol of the Monarch’s abuse of power and improper imprisonment of political prisoners. When the rebels stormed the Bastille, they freed all the prisoners… all seven of them. Despite the small number, the act of defiance emboldened the rebels and spurred them toward independence which occurred at a later date. However, it seemed like a great day to celebrate with French cheeses, wines, baguettes, truffles and macarons.
The cheeses for the Blue Haven Bee and Southern Origins Meadery event were donated by the good folks at Swiss American, a specialty cheese distributor located in St. Louis. I am friends with Tara Sabatini ACS CCP, who sources their specialty cheeses… now that’s got to be a great job… traveling around the world, choosing just the right cheeses for their impressive client list. Our sincere thanks to Tara and Swiss America for their generosity.
BeBops Bakery of Royston provided the fresh baguettes that graced each table and handmade truffles infused with Currahee Winery’s Ole Blue and French macarons on the dessert table. Currently Tracy is selling her fresh bakery goodies at the Saturday Royston Farmers’ Market but will be opening a full-service Bakery on Church Street in Downtown Royston next to Cloud Nine Vapors Shop.
It was an intimate group, about 40, in the new meadery where just two days before, Southern Origin Meadery had bottled their new Red Pyment. With the summer heat and humidity of Northeast Georgia, our setting moved indoors from the more spacious patio we have used for our previous events.
Karen, Brianna, Andrew and Monroe transformed the meadery into a Parisian bistro complete with an Eiffel Tower, red-checkered tablecloths and French Cafe music. For more than a moment, we were all swept away to rue Cler in the 7th Arrondissement.
Brianna began the evening with a tour of the wines and meads we were tasting which included a French Rose, two AOC-protected Ventoux wines from the Rhone Valley, the new edition of Southern Meadery’s WIldflower Mead; their newly-bottled red mead and red pyment. For those of you who don’t know, pyment is a blend of wine and mead. Brianna gave a short history of mead which included learning that mead was the first wine… honey fermented and ooh la la… men began wining and dining women to get into their culottes…
Tracy told us about BeBops and the French baguettes and sweets she handmade for the evening.
Then it was my turn to guide our guests through the French cheeses from Swiss American. We began with Saint Angel, a triple creme produced by Guilloteau with 71% butterfat in the dry matter. It was an immediate hit with its creamy, buttery, fresh taste. Spread on the baguette and paired with the French Rose… the evening was already a success. BeBops had made a fresh pepper jelly using the peaches from our local orchard, Cheeks which also paired well with the triple creme.
Following the triple creme, we served Morbier AOP, a traditional protected washed-rind cheese named after the village of Morbier in the Franche-Comte region of France. Slightly elastic and smooth, Morbier is known as a “Stinky Cheese”, but the smell should not deter you, this cheese is mild and creamy with 45% butterfat in the dry matter. The faint line dividing the cheese is a vegetable ash; a carry-over from a long tradition of using charcoal to protect the morning-milking cheese from pests until topped with the evening-milking cheese. To keep from discouraging our guests from tasting this cheese, I removed the aromatic rind before plating. Personally, while the smell doesn’t discourage my love of this cheese, I don’t like the grittiness of the rind, a trait not uncommon in washed rind cheeses. We suggested the white Ventoux as a pairing with the Morbier.
Next up, we tasted a three-month Mimolette, sometimes called the cantaloupe cheese which the more-aged versions resemble. Lore has it that Napoleon, after returning from The Netherlands, commissioned his favorite cheesemaker to create a cheese to compete with the aged Dutch Goudas. Mimolette was the result. This young version is spongy and slightly sweet but the older Mimolette become brittle and caramelized and butterscotchy (closer in comparison to the aged Dutch Goudas, like Betty Koster’s l’Amuse). The natural rind over time becomes craggy, thus the comparison to cantaloupe. This cragginess comes from the work of cheese mites as they crunch their way through the rind. If you leave an aged wheel out overnight, the next morning a dusting will surround the wheel on the counter where it rested. The mites remain dormant when refrigerated. A few years back, the FDA suddenly in its infinite, governmental judgment, decided those mites were an infestation and for banned the importation of this tasty cheese. It seems our government is forever trying to “save us from ourselves” and rather than father, they know best… but I digress. The Red Pyment paired perfectly with the Mimolette.
From Mimolette, we moved to the iconic AOC-protected Ossau Iraty. One of only two sheep milk cheeses protected by the AOC and EU’s PDO. While I can’t decide on my “favorite cheese”, my favorite style of cheese is aged sheep milk cheeses like Ossau Iraty, Paski Sir and Manchego. In 2010 at the ACS Conference in Seattle I had the joy of tasting one of Sally Jackson’s aged sheep milk cheeses. To this day, I can still taste it in my mind; truly one of the first moments in my “food memory bank” (thanks Erin Harris ACS CCP for the term). Ossau Iraty is tangy, sweet and smooth on the palette, lingering long after the final taste. I could eat this cheese all day only. The red Ventoux brought out the fig and filbert notes of the cheese.
The final cheese on the menu plate was the other AOC-protected sheep milk cheese in France, Roquefort, often called the King of Blue Cheeses. Produced and aged in the caves of the Auvergne region of France, Roquefort was the first cheese to receive the AOC distinction in 1925. Robust and full-flavored, Roquefort paired well with the 2018 edition of Southern Origins Meadery Wildflower Mead. The sweet floral notes of the mead created a nice opposition to the salty finish of the cheese.
After the pairings and a chance to socialize with friends and family, we served our final cheese, Bucherondin Vallee de la Belle, a surface-ripened chevre log from the Poitou region. The middle of the log was oozing as it ripened from the rind toward the center. This aging created a beautiful cremeline which we served with fresh Cheeks’ peaches drizzled with Blue Haven Bee Wildflower Honey. We paired it with an adult slushy made with Currahee Winery’s Sunrise, a local muscadine wine with pronounced peach notes, sometimes called “Georgia in a bottle”. A refreshing ending to a perfect French evening.
Cheeses from the evening and a few other specialty cheeses were offered for sale at the event, enabling our guests the opportunity to continue their stroll down rue Cler with Edith Piaf serenading your walk.
If you missed the event, you can join us Friday, July 27th from 4pm to 6pm at Blue Haven Bee Company to sample Saint Angel Triple Creme. We will be pairing it with 34 Degrees Lemon and Vanilla Crisps. The cheese for this tasting is provided by Swiss American and the crisps are donated for the event by 34 Degrees Crisps. You’ll be able to order our Triple Creme to enjoy at home along with a selection of other specialty cheeses.
Again, my thanks to Blue Haven Bee, Southern Origins Meadery, BeBops Bakery and Swiss American for making the evening a success.
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