Dishing it Up: The Story Behind Twenty Icons of French Food & Drink by Paola Westbeek

Author:Paola Westbeek [Westbeek, Paola]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Paola Westbeek
Published: 2020-02-06T18:30:00+00:00

Bleu de Gex

The blue cheese from Jura

With impressive landscapes and sleepy villages where centuries-old traditions such as bell-casting and pipe making still live on, Jura is worth exploring for both active holidaymakers and those looking for a peaceful retreat. Food lovers, and especially those who appreciate rustic cheeses, will also take a liking to the region.

Comté, France’s most beloved cheese, comes from Jura, as does Morbier, a fruity cheese with a characteristic layer of ash in its center. And let’s not forget the velvety Mont d’Or, a cheese so unctuous you could eat it with a spoon or bake it into a mini-fondue (see the recipe in My Winter Kitchen). Bleu de Gex, however, is rather unknown. The addictively delicious semi-hard cheese has a fat content of fifty percent and is even liked by those who claim they’re not into blue cheese.

I first tasted the cheese (also known as ‘Bleu du Haut-Jura’ and ‘Bleu de Septmoncel’) during a press dinner at Le Pré Fillet, a restaurant in Les Molunes, a typical mountain village in the heart of Haut-Jura. After a meal of local fare, including smoked tongue and turkey in a morel cream sauce, they brought out an impressive cheese plateau, which included Bleu de Gex. Of course, choosing just a few cheeses is never easy, but if I spot a cheese I’ve never tried, I’ll definitely include that one.

Bleu de Gex was love at first bite. I noticed the herbal aroma of tarragon, grassy notes, a hint of mushrooms and the creaminess of freshly roasted nuts. A hearty yet mild cheese. Rustic yet elegant. In short, a cheese with plenty of complexity. From that very first taste, it became my favorite blue. Désolé, Bleu d’Auvergne!

Bleu de Gex was first made in the 14th century by monks at the Abbey of Saint-Claude. The cheese received the A.O.C. label in 1977, and production is now in the hands of only two artisan cheesemakers and two cooperatives in the departments of Jura and Ain.

Only milk from Montbéliarde and Simmental cows is used to make the cheese. These impressive and well-built cows indulge in grass, flowers and herbs growing in the lush, fertile fields of Jura, giving the cheese its fresh and delicate taste.

But how is the cheese made? Early one Saturday morning I witnessed how the freshly delivered milk became large wheels of cheese at L’Abbaye, one of the four still-existing Bleu de Gex fromageries. It starts with the addition of rennet (called ‘caillage’), followed by the fungus penicillium roqueforti. The milk is then manually stirred until the curds form. They are then poured into round molds covered with a layer of cheesecloth. As soon as the wheels take on a more compact shape, they are turned over several times, releasing more moisture. Once out of the mold, the young cheese is lightly salted and enters a cool cellar of approximately twelve degrees Celsius to mature for at least three to five weeks. To further promote the growth of the mold, the

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