Learn French through cheese

Cow, goat, or sheep? Raw or pasteurized? Fresh, creamy, aged, or blue-veined?

Cheese can introduce you to a whole range of French vocabulary. The words used to describe it can also tell you how it was made, where it comes from, and sometimes why it looks the way it does.

From transforming the milk to aging the finished cheese, let's explore some of the steps involved in cheesemaking and the French words that go with them.

It all starts with milk

Before talking about rinds, mold, or aging, we need to start with the main ingredient: milk.

In France, cheeses are mainly made from three types of milk:

The word cru means "raw." You will find it in the expression au lait cru.

The type of milk can already give you a clue about the cheese. Comté is made from cow's milk, Valençay from goat's milk, and Roquefort from sheep's milk.

From milk to cheese

There are many methods of cheesemaking, but several steps and words appear frequently:

To make cheese, the milk first has to coagulate. It turns into a more solid mass called le caillé. Rennet, la présure, can be used to cause this transformation.

The curd is then treated differently depending on the cheese being made. It may be cut, drained, placed in a mold, pressed, or salted.

These steps are not the same for every cheese. That is one reason there are so many different textures, shapes, and flavors.

The inside and the rind

When talking about cheese, two words help distinguish the inside from the outside:

The word pâte can have several meanings in French. It can refer to dough or another mixture used in cooking, but in cheese vocabulary it refers to the part inside the rind.

The word persillé is more surprising. Le persil is parsley, but une pâte persillée is a cheese with blue or green veins running through it.

Roquefort is a famous example.

When mold is part of the cheese

With many foods, mold is a sign that you probably should not eat them. With some cheeses, it is part of how they are made.

A few words can help you talk about it:

Roquefort gets its blue-green veins from a fungus called Penicillium roqueforti. It is introduced during production and then develops inside the cheese.

Other cheeses develop mold on their surface. This is the case with cheeses described as having une croûte fleurie, whose surface can become white and downy.

A croûte lavée is different. During aging, the surface of the cheese is washed regularly. Munster belongs to this family and develops its color, aroma, and some of its character in this way.

Aging transforms cheese

Once a cheese has been made, it is not necessarily ready to eat. Many cheeses go through a period called l'affinage.

During l'affinage, the cheese continues to change. Its texture, flavor, aroma, and rind can all develop.

The time required varies enormously. Comté, for example, is aged for at least four months. Some wheels remain in the cellar much longer.

For Roquefort, the place matters as much as the time. It is aged in the caves of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon. Natural cracks called fleurines allow cool, humid air to circulate through these caves.

Cheese with ash

The gray or black color of a cheese does not always come from mold.

Some cheeses use ash or, today, vegetable charcoal:

Valençay is a goat cheese covered with a mixture of salt and vegetable charcoal. This gives it its characteristic gray surface.

It is also recognizable by its shape: une pyramide tronquée, meaning a truncated pyramid.

Morbier uses vegetable charcoal in a different way. A dark line runs through the middle of the cheese. In the past, soot protected the curd while cheesemakers waited for the next milking. Today, this characteristic line is made with vegetable charcoal.

Cheese and regions

Cheese names can also introduce you to the geography of France.

Roquefort is connected with Roquefort-sur-Soulzon in Aveyron. Comté is produced in the Jura mountains. Camembert de Normandie is connected with Normandy, while Reblochon is associated with the Alps and Savoy.

Many cheeses carry the AOP label, short for appellation d'origine protégée, or protected designation of origin. This designation connects a product with a geographical area and specific production rules.

A cheese name can therefore tell you not only about what you are eating, but also about a region and its traditions.

A few cheeses worth knowing

There are hundreds of cheeses in France. Some are particularly interesting to know because they let you recognize very different types of milk, shapes, and production methods:

These cheeses show how a few words can give you useful information. Brebis tells you about the milk used for Roquefort. Persillé describes its interior. Cendré helps you recognize Valençay. Une meule fits the large round shape of Comté.

You do not need to memorize a long list of names to begin understanding cheese in French.

Before you go

The next time you see a French cheese you do not recognize, look at the words around it. Vache, chèvre, and brebis tell you about the milk. Cru, persillé, cendré, and affiné give you other clues about how it was made and what it looks like.

Even when the name of the cheese is new, a few French words can already help you imagine what you are about to taste.

References

• INAO - Roquefort
• INAO - Comté
• INAO - Valençay
• CNIEL - Processus de fabrication des produits laitiers