Day 82-Le Blackburn

As I get closer to finishing my 100 day epic journey of cheese, I grow increasingly nervous about which cheeses I review.  There’s just so much freaking great cheese out there, what’s a girl to do?  I find myself being more drawn to local cheese.  With few exceptions, it seems like great cheese can be made just about anywhere.  It’s a recipe- you see-it’s not reinvented every batch. There’s something very appealing to me about eating Canadian cheese.  It’s not just patriotism in the form of fromage, it’s appreciating the local twist on a universally acknowledged great cheese.

Le Blackburn is one such cheese.  This time a local twist on an old-schoool cheddar.  Le Blackburn is an eponymous cheese made by the Blackburn Fromagerie  in Jonquière-a city of 51,000 people located 3 hours north of Quebec City on the Saguenay River.  I have mentioned the Blackburn fromagerie in a previous review because of my favourite milk fact: the milk comes directly to the fromagerie from the Blackburn family farm via underground pipes which run below the street.  I am entranced by this fact.  It doesn’t even really matter how the cheese tastes to me now.

The milk for Le Blackburn comes from the farm’s herd of Holstein cows. So everything happens here on the farm, from cow to completed cheese.  Like the Chevre Noir we discussed yesterday, Le Blackburn is made from thermalized milk.  It’s not quite pasteurized and not quite raw, and thus retains characteristics of raw and pasteurized milk-hopefully the best of both. I’m not sure what this means if you are pregnant and needing to be careful of raw milk-I would probably give the thermalized cheese a pass if I was concerned.

The Blackburn family has lived and farmed this farm for four generations but the cheese-making is relatively new-only getting up and running in 2006.  Despite its young age, Blackburn has done extremely well.   This fromagerie also makes Le Mont Jacob which won the 2011 Canadian grand prix in the washed rind category.  Le Blackburn and Le Mont Jacob are complimentary cheeses, Le Mont Jacob is a washed rind cheese, and can be turned over quickly for sale, while Le Blackburn is an aged cheese that needs time to get ready for the party.

Le Blackburn is a pressed firm-bodied cheese.  After the curd is made, it is pressed to expel the whey and then milled and salted again.  This is the same technique used with cheddar before modern cheddaring techniques came into being.  It gives Le Blackburn cheese that same crumbly and cheddary texture.  After being formed and pressed the cheese then mellows out in its own affinage room for at least 6 months, with a frequent wash of its rind to keep the bacterial growth in check.

My slice of Le Blackburn has been waiting patiently beside me as I write.  It does look like a cheddar to me, it reminds me of Avonlea cheddar, except there’s no linen bandage to remove, and no buttered rind-pity!  It’s a firm looking cheese with a yellow paste that’s already crumbling a little-and I haven’t even touched it, I swear.  The rind is a thin natural brown. The smell is very mild, barely discernable.

Here goes…

Mmmm, it is a yummy little cheeese once you get into it. I wasn’t sure for the first couple of bites-the taste is so mild I was having a challenge even registering it, but then it crept up on me.  It’s a safe cheese, you could feed this one to anyone, even fussy children.  It’s a little sharp, but not overly so.  It keeps all the tasting notes in balance and is a perfectly respectable cheese. There’s the slightest hint of a stronger taste as you get near the rind that’s yummy and a little mushroomy, but it’s only at the rind mark, not in the paste.   The texture is smooth, it melts on the palate, there is no crunch.

Here’s the thing-and I don’t want to be mean-but this cheese is boring to me.  Yawn.  It’s just another cheddar, and not even a spectacular one.  If I’m going to eat a cheddar I want it to have zing. I want to remove buttered linens.  I want there to be a mould taste as I approach the rind.  I’m looking for a party! Le Blackburn, although good is perhaps a little too good for me. Get back in the cave for another year, and then let’s talk, shall we dear?   If I’m going to eat cheese-and I am going to eat cheese-I’m looking for a good time and this one’s just a little too well-behaved for me.

Day 81- Chèvre Noir

If there’s one big take away from my 100 day journey into cheese it’s this: goats are good, and not evil.  I’m not alone in my fear of goats and goat milk.  Goat milk really, really tastes, um, goaty.  And goats have kind of creepy sideways pupils. This shouldn’t stop our enjoyment of goat cheese-just don’t look right at their eyes, and learn to enjoy the eau de farm redolent in goat products.  If I can do it, so can you!

Today’s cheese is Chèvre Noir.  When I first heard the name I thought it was a black cream cheese made of goat milk-which is quite hideous sounding-isn’t it?  Silly me!  It’s actually a goat cheddar, wrapped in a black wax.  Apparently the word chèvre simply refers to the cheese being made of goat’s milk-not all chèvre is spreadable.  Chèvre Noir is a Canadian classic hailing from Chesterville, Quebec and the Fromagerie Tournevent.  It’s been around for over twenty years and is apparently the “most awarded Canadian cheese.”

The fromagerie Tournevent was founded in 1976, by a couple who started a dairy goat farm and soon found they had more milk that they could sell (is this really so surprising?).  They decided to produce cheese as a way to use their surplus milk.   By 1986, the milk production became a separate business and the cheese company was able to focus on cheesemaking.   In 2005, the fromagerie was purchased by another Quebec cheese company- Damafro, but still operates under its its own name and using its own production facilities. The goat milk that goes into Chèvre Noir is bought from co-operatives in Quebec that source from about 30 local farms.

Chèvre Noir is a true cheddar, despite the somewhat confusing name.  It is ripened for a minimum of one year before sale, but is also sold at the two and three-year age marks.  The cheddaring technique is used to create this chese-the whey is partly drained and the curd is cut into blocks and stacked, then turned and restacked in order to release moisture. Although it is a cheddar, it’s also clearly a  chèvre it is a pure white cheese-this is because goat’s milk lacks carotene which is responsible for the yellow tone found in cow’s milk cheese.

The milk for Chèvre Noir is neither raw, nor pasteurized, it’s a much less common milk treatment known as thermalization.  Raw milk is just as it sounds-milk straight from the mammary.  Pasteurized milk is heated to scalding to kill all the nasty micro-organisms-and unfortunately  also all the lovely micro-organisms.  Thermalization sits on the fence between the two-the milk is heated to only 60-65 °C for 15 to 30 seconds-this process reduces the number of micro-organisms, but not so much so that the resulting cheese will be without flavor. The United States food administration still considers this to be raw milk, while the European Union consider it pasteurized.  This explains the confusion around this cheese.  It’s raw, but it’s not.

My little square of chèvre noir is quite an attractive looking cheese, it looks like its wearing a tuxedo!  The cheese paste is very white and makes a stark contrast to the black wax-which I shall remove, never fear!  It’s a firm looking cheese, it’s a cheddar, after all.The smell is mild, I can’t catch a whiff of goat, it just smells like a barnyardy cheddar.

Here goes…

Well you can’t smell the goat, but you can certainly taste it!  It’s kind of bizarre.  It’s definitely a cheddar, there’s that sharp, astringent cheesey bite, but it’s also clearly a goat cheese.  There’s that “oops, I stepped in the pail of milk with my hoof” thing too-so it’s really and truly a hybrid. It’s actually freaking delicious.  It’s weird, and I like it!  The texture is divine. Its smooth and chewy, yet yields to the tooth.  I don’t feel any calcium lactate crystal crunch. it’s just a nice cheddarry chew. You certainly couldn’t fool a goat cheese hater with chèvre noir.  It’s a totally unabashed goat cheese, but it’s so damn good it just might make a convert out of the haters. My only complaint would be that it lacks a little salt-and I realize that I bitch about salt in almost every review: too much salt, or too little salt, is it so hard to get it right?

It’s a great looking Canadian goat cheddar.   Go out and try it and thank me later.