Friday 5 February 2010

Tomme Fleurette


Forget the picture of the sweet, flower-munching cow on the wrapping, the pale, innocuous rind and the fact that it’s Swiss. This is deeply sexy cheese, practically feral when left out of the fridge for an hour or two.

Hand-made with raw (unpasteurized) cow’s milk in Rougemount, a tiny town in Francophone Switzerland, Tomme Fleurette is a recent creation by the mustachioed darling of the Swiss cheesemaking world, Michel Beroud. His Fleurette is far softer and creamier than most other mountain cheeses (known as tommes). This is due to its short affinage, or ripening time—just ten days, as compared to 3 months or more for the popular Tomme de Savoie—and the use of damp, moisture-protecting caves. The resulting cheese has a soft, bloomy rind barely containing an unctuous, oozing paté. Its texture calls for good, plain bread, but it is not so stinky as to exclude the use of fingers, while the taste is surprisingly rounded for such a young cheese, milky but not bland, full-bodied though not aggressive. Writing in the popular magazine, l’Hebdo, Jean-Pierre Coffe commented that he could spend an entire afternoon with his eyes closed, just inhaling its aroma.

Coffe, I fear, is rather missing the point. Buy the cheese*, get some wine (a round, not too oaky white or a light red) and bread, and don’t tell me the rest.


Should you be unable to find Tomme Fleurette, try St Marcellin, St Felicien, or even Vacherin Mont D’or, all cow’s milk cheeses made in a similar style in the French-Swiss Alps.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am a total sucker for oozy cheeses. Where did you find this? It sounds wonderful!

Shira said...

Camille, I got it a few weeks ago from the covered market at Aligre--I think the proprietor is Langlet. It's the largest cheese stand.