Sunday, June 25, 2006

A tale of three cheeses

Today being Sunday we went to Limogne market as is our habit. The weather wasn't too good so the market was not as crowded as normal for this time of year. I was wandering around trying to keep Rupert, the dog, out of trouble. (earlier a little guy named Jack had bitten his foot. It was all I could do to hold Roop back.) Anyway, I had the time to look more closely at one of the regular stalls & I noticed that Madame was selling some different looking little cheeses. Had to buy some didn't I? All I could tell was that one was cows milk (vache) & the other two were goats milk (chevre).
Here's a picture of them taken later at home. The one at the top left is a chevre as is the one at the top right. The half eaten one at the bottom is the vache.
So, I asked Madame what they were called. She says; "Vache et Chevre". No I say their specific name? "Vache et Chevre" Ok I'm not going to get more. Who made them? 'Mon Marie" Has your husband been making them for a log time? "Oui" How long do you age them? "Quelques semains." She was a bit of a sourpuss so I gave up at that point realising that I wasn't going to get anything out of her. (Unlike the lady I bought beautiful local apricots from. We had a good discussion about pie making & how many I needed for a 10 person pie.)
Got the cheeses home & tried them for lunch my excuse being that I needed open halves for the photography. The Vache was very pungent, a bit dry with a strong aftertaste. Very nice, I'll buy more. The light colored chevre on the left was pretty much what I expected. A nicely aged chevre with great flavor. The darker one on the right was a new taste as it was definitly chevre but had a very peppery after taste. All interesting & all nameless. Such is rural cheese shopping you just never know & there probably really isn't a specific name for any of these cheeses other than the generic. Locally they'll be known as M. xxx'x cheeses or the Mas de Somethingor other cheeses. C'est la vie what?

PS: Rupert enjoyed his little nibbles as well.

No comments: