Who doesn’t love French cheeses?When you delightfully devour them, have you ever wondered about their origin, making process, and other ways these are made, and other queer facts? If you are a turophile, French cheese will undoubtedly find a place on your list of fatty cheeses!The history of French cheese has accompanied the history of humanity! It has kept evolving. It astounds us that French leaders such as Napoleon, Charlemagne, Charles De Gaulle, and Talleyrand, as well as the clergy and the monastery, were experts in French cheese. That left you gaping? The best cheeses undoubtedly hail from France, thanks to the climate, terrain, and verdant pastures. The country is the leading producer of the best cheese in the world. French culture has a classy reputation and is highly valued at the dinner tables!A Roman Catholic monk, Francois Rabelais, coined the term ‘Holy Trinity of the Table.’ He referred to the cheese, red wine, and bread that have a religious significance in Christianity. The Holy Trinity stands for God in three incarnations; God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. They carry an image of pride and esteem for their rich, entertaining flavor. When you have guests home, let the best of French cheese find a place at the heart of the table, and don’t be mindful about the calories and cholesterol for a while!The European Union follows a well-defined Common Agricultural Policy. Under this policy, many types of cheeses, including several French varieties, have been assigned a specific designation of origin (PDO) as well as somewhat less stringent designations of geographic origins using the EU Protected Geographical Indication for some of the rarest and traditional specialties. These common systems, adopted by the European Union, have replaced the existing French AOC systems. To avoid any sort of confusion, as per the new policies, any French cheese such as Mont d’Or, Bleu des Causses, Bleu cheeses, or soft cheeses which have been designated with a specific protected designation of origin or EU protected geographical indication status, will not be using the designation assigned under the AOC.When Rabelais equated holiness with fresh cheese, among the other cheeses, we must hang on to how prominent French cheese is! To boil it down, you can’t imagine a French table without French cheese!So, before you dig into the block of blue cheese, check some facts about the distinctive taste of dairy products that have made France a formidable name in the cheese industry.After reading these interesting facts about French cheese, also check out French cinema facts and French foreign legion facts here at Kidadl. French Cheese CompositionPairing wines with French cheeses is an art. Cheese-lovers primarily run behind Brie, Camembert, and Comte cheeses, which are mild cheeses. There are 38 cow’s milk cheeses, 15 goat’s milk cheeses, two ewe’s milk cheeses, and one whey cheese.Except for the Roquefort, which is made from sheep’s milk, all these variants are made from pasteurized milk and are available in America and Australia.In the French cheese production process, apart from the pasteurized or unpasteurized milk, flavoring agents like herbs, spices, or wood smoke are used. The butterfat content, mold, bacteria, and processing differ from one type to another. Some French cheeses have yellow or red coloring when annatto, an orange-red condiment, is added. For an intense flavor, ingredients like black pepper, chives, cranberries, and garlic are also considered. When bacteria acidify cheeses, sometimes using vinegar or lemon juice, the flavors are slightly different. On acidification, the milk sugars turn into lactic acids. With the addition of rennet, an enzyme, the processing comes to a standstill. French cheeses are high in fat, phosphorus, protein, and calcium.French Cheese TypesAny guesses on how many types of cheese are French natives? There are over 1000 French cheeses, distinct delicacies with distinctive tastes.The white mold cheeses, rind washed, uncooked semi-hard cheeses, hard cheeses, mountain cheeses, blue cheeses, goat’s milk cheeses, and ewe’s milk cheeses are the seven types of cheeses. Le Fromage is a soft cheese made from cow’s milk that originated in the Brie region of France. The French blue cheese made out of cow’s milk, often considered a variant of Roquefort, is the blue cheese, also called the Bieu des Causses. These are semi-soft and primarily produced in Southern France.The creamy, semi-soft cheese made from unpasteurized milk is called Bleu de Gex and originated in the Jura region of France. The area is also home to the rich, sweet, and greasy flavored Mont D’Or cheese. In France, these tempting cheeses are nicknamed the ‘holy grail of raw milk cheeses’ and are one of the most sought-after cheeses. The soft and flat-formed cheese of Brie de Melun is made from pasteurized cow milk and is one of the most famous French cheeses in Lle de France, Northern France. Its cousin, Brie De Maux, tastes saltier and is stronger.With low moisture content, the hard cheeses are aged longer and are therefore dry and crumbly. The creamy Brie-Boursin varieties of cheese are spreadable cheeses prepared from pasteurized or unpasteurized milk; cream cheese is a more spreadable cheese. Raclette is a famous Swiss and French-cooked cheese type prevalent in the French Alps region.Munster is one of the most well known cheeses that are prepared in Eastern France. It is a strong, or rather quite strong, rind-washed cheese from the Vosges Mountains of Eastern France. This soft cheese is native to the Lorraine region of France and is available in two varieties. One is the normal variant, and the other comes with cumin seeds for a stronger flavor and unique texture. This cheese is darker on the exterior as compared to the Langres cheese. The rind of the Munster is quite thick as compared to other similar cheeses. Many people enjoy eating such hard rinds, while others simply cut them off. As a matter of fact, Munster tastes nice even if it is not fully ripe, as a fully ripe block of this French cheese might be extremely hard from the inside as well as quite strong in flavor. Though, like most of the other strong cheeses from France, you need to ensure before consumption that Munster does not have any sort of acridity in its taste, as such a flavor would indicate that it is overripe and might not be suitable for your consumption.While cheese from cow’s milk or buffalo milk is prepared all over the world, when it comes to cheese prepared from goat milk, the name of France appears right at the top. Some of the most popular French cheeses prepared from goat milk include Clochette and Chablis. Fresh cheese, which is also known as unripened cheese, is prepared using cow, sheep, or goat milk. After curdling, the whey is drained off. The leftover curd is then used for the preparation of fresh cheese. These cheeses are usually not eaten as they are and are used in further recipes as an ingredient to enhance the flavor of the dishes. Such fresh cheese is extremely high in moisture content and is therefore highly perishable. But these cheeses are meant to be fresh, as if they catch any mold, they are no longer edible, unlike the blue cheese.French Cheese Health Benefits96% of the French consume cheese, 47% of them have cheese in France as part of their daily diet, while only 4% seldom eat cheese. What more? The average French person consumes approximately 28 lb (12.7 kg) of cheese per year!Statistics show that one in four French people are heavy consumers. The average consumer who takes cheese once or twice a day rules the charts with 42% while around 31% falls under the line of light consumers; the ones who eat cheese less than once a day.When older people are the heavy consumers, young women and men sweep the graphs of light consumers. There are innumerable health benefits hidden in cheese. They are rich sources of calcium, fat, and protein. These are nutritious with zinc, phosphorus, and riboflavin despite the fatty acids. These help build a solid immune system and are a must in the daily diet. Take note of your cholesterol and calorie consumption at average levels and include French cheese for a healthy body.French Cheese Making ProcessFrance’s leading cheese manufacturers include Lactalis, Bel, Savencia Fromage and Diary, and Danone.Did you know that cheese can have farm, artisanal, and industrial facets?The Fromage fermier, none other than the farm cheese, is made by the milk producers. Exclusively made from milk straight from the farm, the farmers have expertise in their preparation and employ their secret sauces to produce the most textured and delicious fresh cheese; that recipe imparted down the lane by their ancestors. Fromage artisanal, or simply artisanal cheeses, hail from modest and not-so mechanized processing workshops. The artisan pools of raw and refrigerated milk procured from farmers who arrive at the processing workshops are left to pasteurize. Fromage industriel, or industrial cheese, brings various production means after milk in bulk quantities is procured in medium or large industrial units. They continue to roll to reach junk food centers.The artisans and fromagers, or cheesemakers, ideally make cheese in France. Though there are varying cheeses, the cheese-making process usually remains the same. First of all, the milk is processed and prepared for cheese. Once it is pasteurized, milk is set to cool at 32.2 °C (90 °F). The acidic ingredients are then added to ferment the milk to turn it sour. At this stage, vinegar or lemon juice is added to change the constituency and form of the milk. This is then curdled by adding rennet to form curds. Rennets are enzymes obtained from the stomachs of ruminant mammals that inactivate the protein kappa casein, that is, mammalian milk protein in simple terms. The addition of rennet causes the reaction, resulting in curds. Then, the cheesemakers cut the curd and heat it to separate the curds from the whey. Both are left to ferment until a pH point of 6.4. The liquid leftover after the curdling and straining of milk is called whey.The curd is processed by continuous stirring and cooking until it acidifies and dries. Once the curd is processed, they drain the whey until cheese curds are formed. The cheesemakers repeatedly chop and flip the curd mat into sections before milling it. They continue cutting, slabbing, and re-stacking the curd mats. With continual fermentation, the curds will obtain a pH of 5.1-5.5, at which point they are milled.According to the type, the cheeses are then dry-salted or brined. For instance, drier cheeses are salty, while mozzarella is soaked in brine. At this point, spices and condiments like black pepper, horseradish, garlic, habanera, and calves are added as flavoring agents. Herbs like dill, chives, and rosemary are also used with varying types of cheeses. For molds, these are shaped and kept foraging. The processing then comes to a halt. The environment and humidity levels significantly influence the texture of cheeses. The cheeses are carefully ripened, as even subtle changes may adversely affect the surface of cheeses.Grilled cheese with smoked mountain ham and French baguette with cheese recipes rule the French dining room, along with red wines and sweet white wines. French food would be incomplete without its cheese board.Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly facts for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for French cheese facts: curious details revealed for food lovers, then why not take a look at air pollution in Canada facts that will completely shock you, or what is the canopy layer of the rainforest and why is it important.
Who doesn’t love French cheeses?
