New life goal: become a cheese knight.

That is a real thing in France, if you are so blessed by one of many local brotherhoods/sisterhoods of local cheese. The facts of cheese knighthood are among many very real delights described in this book by Kathe Lison, a Wisconsin native who arose from humble beginnings of Kraft boxed macaroni and cheese to explore the cultural and historical nuances of French fromage. If you're a history geek (ME!) who loves cheese (ME!) with a yearning to travel, even if vicariously through literature (ME! ME!) this book will hit all of your sweet spots (and savory spots besides).

I found out about this book by listening to a podcast of the author in conversation with travel guru Rick Steves upon the subject of French cheese. The book delves much deeper into the subject, and does so in an easy-to-relate-to breezy tone. Chapters focus on cheeses such as Salers, chevre in southwestern France, Camembert and the mythology around it, Reblochon, Comte, Roquefort and its caves, sheep cheese of the Pyrenees, and of course, Langre and its cheese knights. There is a great deal about traditional methods of cheesemaking, the ever-changing industrialization of it, and the peculiarities of AOC labels and terroir.

This is my first book of 2020 and I hope it sets my destiny for the year--one filled with delicious artisanal cheese. ( )

Originally posted at Olduvai Reads

“In the States, the neo-hippie, neo-agrarian movement has made it rather fashionable to quit a high-paying job in the city, buy some herd animals, and start making fromage. Then, of course, you’re supposed to write a book about how going back to the land and making cheese has changed you by putting you back in touch with an ancient rhythm of life.”

I was thinking with my stomach and not my head when I requested this book from its publisher.

It was more “mmm…cheese” as visions of Brie danced in my head, than “hmmm a whole book about cheese? Would I really want to read that?”

So when I actually sat down to start reading The Whole Fromage, I panicked. I was to read a book about cheese! Was I crazy? Well yes, a little, as I had only recently finished a whole book about cod which is not even one of my favourite fishes (pomfret , snapper or mackerel are my fishes of choice, the first and second are wonderful steamed Chinese-style, the second and third are fantastic as sashimi. And on the non-edible side, I have a soft spot for the sunfish or mola, which captured my heart on my first trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium many years ago. Sadly, I learnt after my recent visit last month that it died a few years ago).

So back to the cheese. Oh I love to eat cheese. And in fact my most memorable dish at a very expensive fancy lunch was the cheese course. I’m willing to eat most cheeses except for Port Salut which I really cannot stand.

We always have a block of some kind of cheese in the fridge. As of July 12 when I’m writing this there is some Parmesan, Wisconsin cheddar (for a shepherd’s pie I made), aged English cheddar, and a Brie. Thanks to our nearby Trader Joe’s.

None of this compares to the many different types of cheeses that Kathe Lison details in her book, The Whole Fromage.

Lison has dairy in her genes. She hails from Green Bay, Wisconsin, and her great-great grandfather owned a dairy so, as she puts it, “my progenitors were certainly up to their eyeballs in udders”

But her childhood cheese was mostly industrial cheese (as was mine – mostly in the form of cellophane wrapped slices of Cheesdale Cheese, a New Zealand brand) and her interest in French cheeses only began after a trip to Paris when she bought a book on cheese and learnt that there is an estimated total of 650 different cheeses produced in France:

“There were cheeses with wild mulberry leaves pressed into their tops; cheeses bound with rushes; cheeses covered in ash, in cumin, in raisins, in bits of grape skin; cheeses furred with long hairs of mold; cheeses in the shape of bricks, logs, bells, sheep turds; gigantic round cheese that could crush a poodle; and tiny goat cheeses so tender-looking you wanted to pick them up and soothe them.”

So where most of us would probably just take the book home and shelve it, perhaps occasionally consulting it for a new cheese to try at the local supermarket, Lison takes it upon herself to travel around France, to cheese caves, to a monastery, to farmlands to watch different types of cheese being made, cows being milked, and just to sample all kinds of delectable cheeses, all the while learning about the politics being cheese production, in terms of French government subsidies, American government taxes and so on.

It is a detailed book, I mean, who knew there could be so much behind cheese? The French system of AOCs, for example, which preserves the diversity of French food products like cheese, actually makes them less diverse. Each producer makes a cheese differently, using their own technique, but an AOC cheese cannot be ‘too diverse’ and thus there is a need for ‘harmonisation’ of techniques. Some sections were perhaps a little too detailed for me, but there were plenty of fascinating cheese moments, like Camembert, a favourite cheese of mine, started out with a blue-gray and gray-green rind, because of the mould strain. But scientists managed to isolate a white spore strain, leaving us with that cheese “as white as the bosom of a pure Norman maid”.

And we mustn’t forget the taste of the cheeses themselves:

“Later that evening, I would sit in my room with one of Monique’s cabécous warm in my palm. It was pale – the pate of a chèvre is lighter in colour than a cow’s-milk cheese because goats convert more carotene (which, as you may recall from middle school science class, is what makes carrots orange) to vitamin A – and it was lovely. In my hand it felt sort of fleshy, almost alive, and when I squeezed it, the firmer pate slid about in the little pouch made by the croute. I cut it open with my Swiss army knife, and a layer of cream oozed about the edges. When I put my nose down to it and sniffed, it smelled heavenly, like the moist hay of the goat barn. Then I cut a morsel and placed it on my tongue. The taste was grassy and lemony, almost to the point of being tangy. There was salt, too, and a pleasant, musky aftertaste. It was the taste of Poutignac, of the farmhouse in the early morning light, of the polychromatic goats in the barn, of wildflowers like those Monique had hand-painted onto the tiles in my little bathroom, carefully writing their Latin names – Viola odorata or Primula veris – underneath each picture. The cheese seemed almost a part of Monique herself.”

Ok I have to go cut myself a slice of Brie now. It will not be as spectacular but it will have to do.

I received a copy of this book for review from Crown Publishing’s imprint Broadway Books.

( )

Katherine Lison Explores the glorious world of French cheeses in The Whole Fromage: Adventures in the Delectable World of French Cheese. She visited monasteries, cheese caves, laboratories, and French cheese shops to learn the history of cheese making and explain the philosophies and challenges of this icon of France' culinary legacy.

Lison' book is more optimistic than Michael Steinberger's Au Revoir to All That: Food, Wine, and the End of France. While Steinberger laments the societal shifts and regulatory burdens that he believes are squelching artisanal cheese production in France, Lison celebrates the traditional cheese makers still around and the history that makes them great. ( )

When I first started reading Kathe Lison's The Whole Fromage: Adventures in the delectable World of French Cheese, I thought, "Oh, no, not again." My fear was that this book would prove to be one of those superficial reports of an experiential "encounter" with a topic--something that seemed book-worthy, of course; and that fear, in fact, seemed to realize itself after I read the introductory chapter. (Confession: I was once a certified cheese grader [but only for English cheddars and select other territorials], so I didn't want such a load of personal connectivity to cheese: I was instead looking for facts, for ethnographic portrayals of French cheesemaking in the twenty-first century.)

Anyway, after my disappointing introduction to this book--the disappointment due not to the writing, which is quite good, but to the approach to the topic--I was quite happy to return to it some months later and, eventually, to finish the text, since Lison does, in fact, uncover a lot about the state of cheesemaking in France today. It's a story of tradition versus technology and progress; but it's also a story of a nostalgic, in a way, return to what we seem to have "forgotten" in the modern, hyper-connected world. The issues of sustainability are more about economics than about the environment, since there's nothing particularly "efficient" in the modern world about traditional farmhouse cheesemaking methods. Hence the cheesemaking process has largely been industrialized in France today--a statement of fact, not of judgment.

Cheeses profiled in the book--some in greater detail than others--include Cantal, Roquefort, Camembert, Beaufort, Comté, Langres, and Mont d'Or. I was thankful to have a copy of the Dorling Kindersley illustrated guide to French Cheese--the same book mentioned in the introductory chapter--since I was able to see the cheeses I was reading about. Most of the other books Lison mentioned are in my cheese library; but I must procure a copy of Patrick Rance's French Cheese Book, from which she quotes quite a bit. My review copy was an Advance Reader Copy and thus lacked the promised map in the front matter as well as page numbers matching the notes in the back matter. The book will be useful as a reference to those interested in French cheese or in traveling to France, though: it includes a list of Parisian cheesemongers, a helpful glossary of French cheese-related terms, and a list of selected references. Overall, then, it's a fascinating exploration of an engaging topic. If you can read beyond certain details about the author's personal story (and details about her itineraries and travel plans and the like that dot many chapters), mining for the easily digestible curd about the more important topic, you'll enjoy the work and be glad you read it.

Lison decides to track the origins of traditional French cheeses and tries to track down cheesemakers still using the traditional methods. Her credentials are pretty much just that she's from Wisconsin and speaks French, but she manages to get time with some very busy farmers.

I like cheese. If I'm honest, every time I pick up a book about tracking something nostalgic down, I hope that it will be another Candyfreak by Steve Almond. That isn't fair and everyone can't be that funny. I'll just say that The Whole Fromage starts slowly, has interesting bits, boring bits and a little humor. ( )