Cheese, less glorious cheese

So remember way back when I left a promissory note in the blog that I would write a whole series of cheese posts? Much to the relief of some of you I'm sure, I never got around to it (though I did take pictures of many of those cheeses so you never know!). And if that was you, well you can rest assured that you will not be getting any documentation about the cheeses that are readily available in the average supermarket here.

Well, you won't after this post.

Note to cheese entrepreneurs: don't choose a name for your dairy product that makes it sound like animal parts in gelatin. When I'm in the mood for cheese, I'm very definitely not in the mood for head cheese.

Or there's this one, which at least sounds economical and dietetic, though not necessarily good:

Sigh.

Actually, there is good cheese here. It's just that what was "everyday cheese" in France seems to be a luxury item here. So perhaps for our next special occasion dinner, I will visit the specialty grocer with a walk-in environmentally controlled cheese room! Until then, Laughing Cow and Babybel are as good as it gets ... at least those names are slightly better than the ones here?

If you can't stand the stink, stay out of the Boulette

This is the first in a series of cheese posts that have been a long time coming. I was trying to take a break from strictly food posts, but as a result, all the cheese, glorious cheese we've been eating has been neglected. And that's just sad because they're so good.

However, if there were ever a cheese that would not be endorsed as glorious by the (US) National Dairy Board, this might be it. It's the antithesis of every image presented in that commercial and of every scent and taste evoked by that commercial.

Here it is ...


It looks a little alarming. It smells more than a little alarming. But it actually tastes really good. (Ok, I admit right now that I like durian, but hear me out because this has much broader appeal than durian ... or at least somewhat broader appeal ... I think?)

Boulette d'Avesnes is a very old cheese from the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region near the border with Belgium. According to the website of the city of Avesnes-sur-Helpe, whence this stinky little delicacy comes, the cheese dates back to 1760 or so. At that time, it was made from buttermilk (and was the result of thrift) but since the early part of the last century, it's been made from the fromage blanc of Maroilles (another delicious cheese for another post).

So a little background here: fromage blanc is the first stage in some cheese making in which milk + rennet = coagulation. The solids are fromage blanc. (I'm pretty sure that you can also get fromage blanc via coagulation with lactic fermentation, but I'm no expert and in any case the fromage blanc of Maroilles is made with rennet.)

When the fromage blanc de Maroilles isn't up to snuff for one reason or another, when it's accidentée, the solids get mashed up with parsley, tarragon, salt and pepper (and sometimes ground cloves), and formed into the boulette.


They're then aged for two to three months, during which time they're brushed with beer and finally, they're coated with paprika (or annatto).

So what is it like?

Well, the boulette are sold upright with a molded plastic cap covering the cheese that snaps onto that black base you see in the photos. The fromager wraps the encased cheese in paper and gives it to you to take home. When you get home and unwrap the paper, the smell you couldn't smell in the cheese store (because all the other cheeses were masking it) fills the air. And when you take off that plastic cap ...

If I told you exactly what it smelled like with the most accurate description I know, family members would be offended and shocked that I would say such a thing and all of you would wonder what in the world would possess me (and James -- he ate it too!) to put something in my mouth that smelled like this does. But along with the smell that says "This thing shouldn't be eaten", there is the smell of cheese. Plus, you bought it at the cheese shop, so it probably is cheese and not something else.

The texture is something like feta, boursin and ricotta all rolled into one. It's sort of firm and compact, but sort of spreadable (with a lot of pressure on the knife), but a little crumbly.


The flavor is really good. It tastes strong and pungent like Maroilles, but with herbs (and salt -- it is quite salty). The tarragon gives it a really pleasant anise-y sweetness, which, coupled with the paprika, sort of tricks you into tasting cinnamon.

It tastes great with Belgian beer and is also good alongside a pear.

But, let's just say that this is an outside cheese and even though I'd gladly eat it again, I probably won't buy one again.

The beginning of better days in France

Once we found the apartment, it was a huge relief. We moved in on a Tuesday, which is one of the market days for the Place des Prêcheurs (along with Thursday and Saturday), which is right around the corner. It's an even bigger market than the one in the Place Richelme.

One thing that I now regret is that I didn't take tons of pictures of all the delicious produce that I found at the market as the seasons were changing. It seemed like there were enough tourists there with cameras and I didn't want to annoy the people I'd be buying my vegetables from for a year or two...it's better to get on their good sides. As a result, we don't have a record of the perfect figs that were everywhere for our first month, or the beautiful tomatoes, or the sweet tart plums that we really enjoyed eating. I do have some pictures though, and I'm going to try to take more.

Our first day in the apartment we took advantage of the delicious wares of one of the rotisserie trucks at the market. The one I went to roasts (among other things that I'm forgetting) whole chickens, chicken legs, guinea fowl, rabbits, lamb shank, sausages, corn-on-the-cob, pork loin, jambonneau (pork knuckle, or the rear leg) and what I got, jambonette de volaille.

Literally, this translates as "little ham of poultry", which didn't make a lot of sense to me or James. In fact, we thought we were eating ham because it was savory and smoky just like ham; however, jambonette de volaille really is poultry. It's a gigantic turkey thigh that has been smoked and roasted. It's called a jambonette because it's the analogous cut of meat on a turkey that a ham comes from on a pig. (Let that be a lesson to us about not knowing where the meat comes from!) When you get anything at the rotisserie stand, it's accompanied by fabulous sliced, herbed potatoes that get roasted in all the chicken drippings (which might sound disgusting, but it's not -- they're not oily and grease-soaked, they have a really nice, waxy texture and are rich and more flavorful than any potatoes I've ever tasted). It's a perfect meal. We decided to be French and have some wine with our lunch. You may recognize said wine from the picture with the ravioli, but it was a much better pairing with the jambonette de volaille. And this time, we really did have something to celebrate.

The celebration continued with dinner that night because it was high mushroom season and at the market in the Place des Prêcheurs there is a mushroom vendor (who also, oddly, also sells avocados as you can see in the picture). They have several kinds of dried mushrooms and they have an excellent selection of fresh mushrooms too. The fresh mushrooms were a little picked over by the time I got there with the camera, so no great picture. (And probably no great picture until next year because the fresh mushrooms are really limited these days.)

In particular, the girolles, or chanterelles, looked great. (You can see some cèpes, or boletes in the foreground.) So to clarify what might seem like a naming oddity since "chanterelle" sounds like a French word, here, what you probably think of as a chanterelle is called a girolle, but chanterelle is used in the names of other mushrooms in the same family like chanterelles grises or chanterelles jaunes (gray or yellow chanterelles, respectively).

I've never been sure about the best technique for cleaning mushrooms, so I asked and was told that I should just rinse them in a colander and sauté them in a pan with some parsley (I ended up adding some shallots too). And then the vendor actually pinched his fingers together and kissed them and said "c'est super!" It turns out most of the people at the mushroom stand are kind of grouchy, but on this day, this guy was pretty excited.

The celebration of finding an apartment also required more cheese. This time we got a half of a fleur du maquis, another Corsican cheese, whose name literally translates to "flower of the scrubland", the scrubland being a major part of Corsica's landscape. It's a raw ewe's milk cheese covered with dried savory and rosemary and topped with chili peppers (and sometimes juniper berries, although this one didn't have any). The cheese itself is a little sour tasting, which is actually really nice with the herbs and chili peppers. It has a soft, creamy texture that's completely unlike the soft, creamy (but slippery?) texture of, say, a brie (even though they have the same fat content). It's drier, somehow, but not like an aged cheese, either. In any case, it's great and you should try it.

The best part of the meal, was that we got to eat it outside, on our terrace.