It was hosted by the lovely Katrina Alloway and an enthusiastic bunch of food bloggers gathered at La Fromagerie in Marleybone to try various French cheeses.
Some of the La Fromagerie features: a fox & a crow fighting over a cheese block, some of the goods on display and a disco ball for when they play cheesy music?!
La Fromagerie is a beautiful shop. A real Aladdin’s cave of cheesy treasures and it is packed full of personality, warmth and charm that reflects well on Patricia, the owner who has an encyclopedic knowledge of all things cheese.To begin with I felt a bit of a fraud as I was the only one who said they take chocolate over cheese if stranded on a desert island. However, that’s more due to my chocolate obsession rather than any lack of love of cheese!
We were split into groups and I ended up in the smallest group (not a bad thing as it meant more cheese for us) with Kavey, Chris and Stephen.
We started off with a tour of French cow’s cheese by the friendly and knowledgeable Jean Baptiste. We got to sample ten cheeses of various strengths, textures and flavours.
Comte D’Estive – this was amazing. I absolutely fell in love with this and had second, third and then fourth helpings of it! It had a sweet, almost caramel taste to it and I bought a big chunk to take home with me.
Reblochon, Savoie – quite mild, but had a lovely smooth creamy texture. A great snacking cheese I thought.
Vache Porte D’Aspe Valley – A challenging cheese with a strong and distinct flavour. Kavey described it as giving an almost chilli like sensation in the mouth and I know what she meant. It was very different and something that I would not normally try.
Cheese Map of France
It was then off to the café section of the shop where we were served with four dishes featuring cheese. Unlike my other group members, I particularly enjoyed the roquefort soufflé. Light, not too strong and with a good contrasting crunch from the enclosed hazlenuts. It was accompanied with a lovely spiced pear chutney that provided a good fruity contrast to the blue cheese.
Roquefort and Walnut Souffle with spiced pear chutney
In keeping with my sweet tooth, my favourite wine was the Sauternes-Barsac, which went well with the soufflé and the fig tarlet.
Finally it was off to the Affineur’s room and a lesson from JP. For those that don’t know (and I didn’t until Wednesday) an affineur is basically a sommelier of cheese. They prepare, manage and look after the cheese so it reaches the customer in perfect condition.
Inside the Affineur Room (part 1)
The Affineur’s room is a giant walk-in fridge packed full of cheese. Together with the maturing rooms that they have at La Fromagerie, it is used to age the cheese to perfection.
JP talked all about his job - how he ‘washes’ the cheese to give it extra flavour, keeps waste to a minimum and how he gives cheese recommendations to people wanting advice on experiencing new cheese.As well as being highly knowledgeable, he was friendly and had time for all our questions. It was obvious that he loved cheese and he talked about it in the way most people would talk about their loved ones.
Inside the Affineur Room (part 2)
These went down well, although I bought a bit much and ended up taking them down the pub with my friends, which led to the slightly surreal moment of watching the David Haye fight whilst eating some fine French cheese!
Overall, it was delightful evening and I learnt a lot about cheese. From the small producer in the Pyrenees producing 50 cheeses a week to the battles over PDO status with big producers about the names of some of the regional cheeses, it was an enlightening and enjoyable event.
You can find out more about the Vive le Cheese Campaign on Facebook, at the official blog or on Twitter.
