On the radio

It’s fair to say that things have been a little hectic over the last couple of weeks. I’m pretty much unpacked and settled into London and of course, the book is now published (I’ve seen it in shops and everything). So I’m officially an author. Blimey.

Live from London

The publicity side of things has been a whole new world of weird for me but has been good fun – lots of interviews, presentations and signing of books. I actually spent most of yesterday in a BBC sound studio recording for local radio shows across the country. It turned out that the next person to use the booth I was in was the awesome Bill Bailey. There was just enough time for a quick photo before I was forced out of the building by the enormous entourage of some singer that I confess to never having heard of.

Hats off to the badgers

So what to do to calm down after the 15 minutes of fame? Fortunately there was a very fine hunk of Roquefort in the fridge that I’d picked up from the Mons stall at Borough Market. Tasting that creamy, melt in the mouth woolliness, cut with through with mildly metallic blue notes took me right back to visiting Roquefort this summer, and reminded me that I have several thousand photos that I really ought to start sorting through...

My new book

Did I mention that I wrote a book?!

An advance copy of my new book

Well here’s a photo of the advanced copy that I was recently sent by the nice people at Michael O’Mara books. It’s amazing to see it finally in print.

You’ll be able to get your hands on a copy on the publication date (5^th September) from the usual bookshops and on-line retailers. 

Salers

Apologies all, a technical problem resulted in this post getting deleted. I have now reinstated it.

Hi everyone. Apologies for the lack of posting recently, I’ve been pretty busy making cheese with some great producers. Internet access has been something of a sore point though and my brilliant plans of posting using my smart phone received a rather crushing blow recently (smartphones, as it turns out, don’t take well to heavy rain in the mountains).

I thought that as a taster of what’s been going on, I would share this photo of perhaps my favourite scene to date in the cheese world – the milking of the Salers cow.

There is no milking parlour, we’re out at high altitude in rich, rain-drenched pastures. The Salers cow provides tasty beef, but it was the the milk that this herd was churning out that we were after. It was exceptional and rich, with deep and complex grassy notes.

The beautiful cows of the Salers breed have a tendency to hold onto their milk unless their calf is present - which is why her calf is in frame, tied to her front leg for the milking (one udder is left for the calf afterwards, leaving plenty of milk to supplement their diet). The cows get all the nutrients that they need from the vast expanses of pasture but they do like a bit of salt, so the farmer places a handful on the back of the calf, which the cow will then lick off - an act which calms the calf.

This is a long winded process - the forty or so cows are free to roam in the milking enclosure and with the addition of an equivalent number of calfs and a bull, the milking could well be described as a kind of organised chaos.

The cheese is awesome, what you’re looking for is “Salers Tradition” the “Tradition” is important, it’s a controlled term that ensures that you are eating a cheese made up in the mountains according to the traditional practises. It’s rich, buttery and heavily scented, with grassy, herby notes battling a strong dose of farmyard and an incredibly satisfying bitterness that entices you to take another bite. This is a ‘real cheese’, as real as they get – made how you would want cheese to be made. But a proper description will have to wait for another post – it’s time to get back to the farm...

On age and cheese

So in a previous blog post, I commented that ‘Comté and Beaufort tend to reach their peaks of flavour and texture at around 15 – 18 months’. A reader asked why that was, given that much older Comté is available and very good.

Opening a Comté - one of the best parts
of working in cheese

I am not a specialist in ageing pressed, cooked cheeses such as Comté, Beaufort and the Swiss Gruyeres, but I have been working around them for a fair while now. In the shop I would open perhaps five or so a week with varying ages, and would make sure to taste each and every one of them – partly to check for faults and problems, partly to enable me to describe it to customers, but mostly because the moment that the wheel is cut open is sacred. This cheese has been looked after, caressed and cared for over many months and I have the privilege of opening it and being the first to take advantage of that labour of love. A newly opened wheel is hugely fragrant, but sadly that fragrance disappears very quickly. You can recreate this effect to an extent by taking a freshly cut piece of cheese and breaking it in two then quickly smelling the break.

I found personally that it was the 15 – 18 month period that was the most interesting, and most of the rest of the staff were in agreement on that score - as were a large number of our clients when they tasted our range of Comtés. Of course this is subjective however, and not everyone will agree.

My personal experience of age and hard, cooked cheeses is that over time two main things happen: the texture changes and flavour develops (and of course the price increases). The texture will become less supple, drier and crystals will begin to form (these aren’t salt crystals but rather the amino acid Tyrosine). In terms of flavour, this will improve steadily, becoming more and more interesting, but after about a year and a half I find that whilst the concentration of flavour continues to increase, its complexity begins to decrease. Heavily aged Comtés taste strong, but I find that I miss some of the more subtle expression of the milk that you would find in a slightly younger cheese.

Next time that you have the opportunity to try a younger cheese followed by a mature one, check for yourself how the taste evolves in your mouth and see if you agree with me.

A final point to note is that age is not always the best indicator of quality. Leaving a wheel of gruyere in a walk-in fridge for three years without taking care of it isn’t going to result in the best ever gastronomic experience...

Handed in on time!

So there it is – the completed manuscript for my first book, The Cheese And I. It's coming out in September and I'm so excited to see the finished product. 

I have to confess that I was a little disappointed that the whole book condensed into such a small file size that it would have fitted three times (with room to spare) onto a floppy disk. All those words!

Anyway, now that’s in the trusty hands of the good people at Michael O'Mara books, I’ve begun touring France and checking out some of my favourite cheese producers. The reception can get a little sketchy in the mountains so apologies if I go off radar a bit. I’ll do my best to keep you posted on what I’m up to. I've got my camera with me and will be snapping away, so watch this space for more pictures and cheesy titbits.

Leaving Lyon (sniff)

These last 10 days have been emotional.

Lyon, it’s been awesome - I'm going to miss you.

I have now officially left the Lyon shop, nearly a year to the day when I started, and handed over the keys to our Lyon flat. Our time in Lyon is officially over.

It’s been a blast but it’s time to move on and so I'm back for a short stay in London to finish up the book and finalise organising my “summer of cheese”. I'm planning a tour around France visiting some of my favourite producers and learning about what makes their cheese quite so special.

Lyon has been brilliant and I've met some fantastic people. This post however, is a specific mention and thank you to my favourite cheese shop team at Fromagerie Mons – Etienne Boissy, who have all done so much to help me find my way in the cheese biz (and put up with me when I was massively stressed in competition training).

I've had a great time working with you and thanks for the send-off!

From left to right:
Sabrina, Bénédicte, Etienne, Me, Victor and Severine

More exciting news

Ok, you might have noticed that I haven’t been blogging much recently - Sorry about that, but I do have an excuse though, so please bear with me.

I am very happy to announce that my current distraction from blogging is that I'm writing a book - also titled “The Cheese and I”. It’s being published by the lovely folks at Michael O’Mara Books and is due for an Autumn release this year. It’s going to be fairly autobiographical, talking about how I went from accountant to (ahem, prize-winning) cheesemonger with lots of detail on the people, problems and cheeses that I've met along the way.

If you’re interested, you might want to check out this article from the bookseller and don't worry, I certainly intend to continue blogging so watch this space.

The Bookseller picture unfortunately only shows my face, and not the much more handsome little fella that I was holding at the time. Here it is in full.

Me and a goat