Tales from the Cheesemonger

July 2005

Spring has just turned to summer and what better way to hold a July fête than with an All-American Cheese Board? Tumalo Tomme is back, with a whiter flesh than its ruby autumn counterpart; the high-altitude notes in Bingham Hill’s Rustic Blue are near heaven; Humboldt Fog comes up roses when Durand Syrah coats your palate, such a tough one to pair most seasons; Brindisi Fontina in its recent 8-month old edition wants to be eaten with Dalmatian Fig Spread on good toast; and San Andreas Sheep wheels are beeswax-yellow beauties that taste like good grass. Summer at Beecher’s is a bounty of great, ambitious cheeses.

Marin French: New Addition

Our latest addition to the Marin French line of cheeses is Yellowbuck Chevre. The word ‘chevre’ is simply French for goat but tends to describe, for English speakers, a particular style of goat cheese – usually soft, fresh, and mild. Although to an American Yellowbuck Chevre looks like a brie or camembert, it is actually a fairly unique goat’s milk cheese with a white bloomy rind and a slightly firm and dryer paste—smooth, mellow, and rich. It might cream up somewhat with time. Having just received them, I haven’t had the time to hold one back and watch it age.

If you are familiar with this venerable factory’s offerings, you’ll know that they have excelled for over a hundred years in that magical county in the North Bay of San Francisco. Marin French Cheese Company is the oldest cheese making operation on the West Coast, now in its 140th year. They continually create diverse and interesting lines of products that attract global attention, without super-sizing their production and losing quality that can only come from single-source milk and cheesemakers who work at the highest level of their craft. The Marin French product lines, Rouge et Noir and Yellowbuck, are the granddaddy artisan cheese labels of the West Coast. Since we at Beecher’s are, as of this writing in June of 2005, all of 17 months old, there is much to be learned and admired in Marin French Company’s perseverance and continuing attention to quality.

Naming Cheeses

If Marin French were a European cheese company, they might by now have a trademark on some of their unique cheeses. In Europe, this special designation goes by a few names, like A.O.C. (appellation d’origine controlée) in France and D.O.C. (denominazione di origine controllata) in Italy. In the mid-20th Century, European cheesemakers recognized that they would lose control of the quality attached to the name of certain highly-regarded cheeses unless a system was established that created standards for milk, the make-process, and the geographic limits for cheeses called specific names such as Parmegiano Reggiano. In this way, it’s a bit like a trademark in the U.S. Some cheeses, like cheddar, long ago became ubiquitous and too difficult to regulate. There is talk of adopting such a system in the U.S. or of creating world-wide cooperation to protect certain names and the cultural value of important food stuffs. Until such time, be aware that domestic “brie,” or one without an official designation like Brie de Meaux, can be far, far different than anything you might have tried in France. The designation does not guarantee quality but does assure the consumer that the cheese is made according to strict standards.

This idea makes describing and naming domestic cheeses a bit confusing. New American cheeses are often hard to categorize – created by combining cultures in new ways, or aged in an unconventional way. An American consumer used to considering cheeses by a European yardstick might be disappointed that a cheese called ‘gruyere,’ for instance, does not measure up to an import. It may be that it is a different creature altogether and named ‘gruyere’ out of convenience. So next time you ask your Cheesemonger for a sample of a domestic cheese named after a European style, remember to keep an open mind and allow it to be itself.

Enjoy your summer.

Bon Fromage!