Each Friday night time, my household celebrates cheese night time. Okay, rejoice is perhaps a robust phrase. However for the previous few years, we have designated Fridays as cheese nights. On the finish of a protracted week, it is good to place out a selection of fruit and veggies, olives and pickles, bread, and, in fact, cheese.

Whereas any cheese will do for cheese night time, we now have somewhat cheese snob in us. I come by it sincere—on one in all my first solo travels, I used to be fortunate sufficient to look at Caerphilly cheese being made in Wales. It was my first actual understanding that there have been cheeses past American and cheddar (I nonetheless love a terrific cheddar). Years and miles later, we—the youngsters included—are prepared to strive all types of cheese.

Comfortable cheeses had been the final on our listing that we tried. However on a whim, I signed us up for a cheese tasting whereas visiting France—as soon as we tried totally different sorts with a little bit of steering, we had been hooked. It was significantly attention-grabbing to learn the way cheeses develop totally different style and really feel traits based mostly on how they’re made. And much more attention-grabbing? One of the vital well-known cheeses in France—if not the world—owes its origin to tax.

Making Cheese

First, a fast primer on cheesemaking. The purpose of constructing cheese is to rework milk from a liquid right into a strong. This sometimes occurs by including one thing—like acid or enzymes—to the milk. Because the components work their magic, the cheese separates into curds and whey (it’s possible you’ll recall these out of your nursery rhymes). The milk solids or curds are then minimize into items—for smooth cheeses, you narrow them into huge items and transfer to the subsequent steps. Arduous cheeses are minimize into greater items and cooked a bit longer to dry them out. At this level, you could have cheese— you simply need to make it into the form you want, then salt and age it. Salting provides taste and acts as a preservative, whereas getting older helps develop taste.

So what does that need to do with taxes?

Cheese & Taxes

Within the thirteenth century, dairy farmers within the Alpine area of Haute-Savoie—a couple of ten-hour drive south of Paris, not so removed from Toulouse—had been topic to an annual tax, le droit d’ociège, translated actually as “the precise of affiliation.” The tax was collected by feudal lords—largely nobles, but additionally some clergy—and was calculated based mostly on the variety of milk jugs produced in at some point by the farmers’ cattle. On tax day, the tax inspectors would come by to look at the milking and take a portion of the butter and cheese produced from the milk as cost.

This left the farmers with a dilemma. They benefitted when their cows produced extra milk—besides when it got here to taxes. To pay much less in taxes, the cows would want to look to provide much less milk.

This gave the farmers an concept—what in the event that they altered the timing of their milking on tax day? The farmers opted to not absolutely milk the cows when the tax inspectors got here by, so there was much less milk to be tallied. After the inspectors left, the farmers did a second milking. There wasn’t loads of milk within the second milking, however what was produced was very wealthy in cream—superb for making cheese for the reason that purpose is to rework the milk right into a strong.

The time period for a second milking in French is “reblocher,” a verb which means to pinch the cow’s udder a second time. It was an early type of tax evasion—however resulted in scrumptious cheese.

About Reblochon

Right now, by legislation, the manufacturing of the cheese, known as reblochon from reblocher, is restricted to the mountains of Haute-Savoie and the Val d’Arly, in Savoie (kind of like how champagne can solely be known as champagne if it is from the Champagne area of France). In 1958, Reblochon was the primary cheese within the Savoy area to obtain an Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée (AOC) label—now known as Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) within the EU.

The cheese is a uncooked cow’s milk cheese—it doesn’t endure any warmth therapy above 37°C and isn’t pasteurized. The rind of the cheese is skinny and orange-yellow, coated with white foam.

My favourite cheese retailer describes Reblochon as “a well-proportioned cheese with a nutty aftertaste that contrasts with a robust odour of the cellar. The creamy cheese usually has a natural aroma. From this course of, the rind turns a orange-yellow with a velvety texture.”

Alas, you may’t purchase Reblochon within the U.S. The FDA banned it in 2004 because it would not meet the required getting older time—it is historically aged for simply 50 days, which is lower than the USDA edict that uncooked milk cheeses be aged at the very least 60 days.

The U.S. wasn’t at all times so averse—they included a complete paragraph on Reblochon of their 1953 Agricultural Handbook.