Le Port-Salut est un fromage français à pâte pressée non cuite très doux, couvert d’une fine croûte uniforme de couleur orange. Sa croûte orangée est très fine et régulière. Sa pâte est moelleuse, lisse et homogène. Fromage moelleux au goût très doux et à l’odeur légèrement lactique. C`est le plus célèbre des fromages d’origine monastique.
Origine et Fabrication
Fabriqué en Mayenne, ce fromage est originaire du monastère d’Entrammes. Autrefois fabriqué par les frères trappistes de l’Abbaye Notre Dame de Port du Salut, il est désormais produit par les fromageries Bel. C’est une marque déposée.
Caractéristiques
- Type: Fromage à pâte pressée non cuite
- Goût: Très doux, légèrement lactique
- Croûte: Fine, uniforme, de couleur orange
- Pâte: Moelleuse, lisse, homogène
Formats Disponibles
Il existe différents formats:
- 200g
- 320g
- Grand format de 2,2 kg pour la coupe
- Tranches préemballées
- "Port Salut pause fondante" en forme allongée de baguette de 180 g
Le Fromage Français et sa Diversité
Ah French cheese! It’s one of the first things that comes to mind when someone mentions France. It is an industry that is progressing, increasing output each year. Cheese consumption in France has risen 30% over the last few years. National cheese day celebrates artisan French cheese made from raw milk, reminding us to look for cheese beyond the idustrial brands and the supermarkets. On March 27th be sure to pay a visit to your local cheesemonger and support French culture, savoir-faire and art de vivre! There will be special tastings going on all day long.
Cheese is a lot like fruit: it has to be just ripe, it is seasonal, is best when it is not refrigerator cold, each type has a different way to be cut… Here’s a 1-2-3 of cheese to give some background and how to serve this important part of the French table.
- Fromage - «formage» in old French - is derived from the word «forme», meaning shape or mold.
- Monger is used with many other words such as iron monger, ale monger, war monger, fishmonger but it is not often used alone. The word has been used for more than 1000 years tracing back to a Latin noun meaning merchant, broker or dealer. Up until the 16th century the term had the simple meaning of a peddler, but after that time it took on a new connotation that was negative and that the peddler called a monger was usually dishonest. It can also refer to a person who attempts to stir up or spread something that is petty or discreditable. Think of rumormonger, gossipmonger, scaremonger, and hypemonger. A cheese plate usually includes 4 to 6 cheeses, all from different regions and different families with different intensities of taste, the idea being to work your way from the lightest and freshest to the most powerful. The cheese platter thus becomes a journey of tastes, smells, shapes and colors, a trip through France (or Europe). Serve cheese at room temperature or slightly cool to prevent sweating the fats out, but not directly out of the fridge. Like with wine room temperature does not necessarily mean the temperature of the room (especially on a summer day!).
- There are three major types of milk: cow, goat, and sheep. But within each milk type, there many families mostly dependent on the length of aging. Among goat’s milk cheeses for example one can go from chèvre très frais (very fresh), to frais (fresh), crémeux (creamy), or sec (aged). Here’s a summary of cheese families, but depending on where you look there can be quite a variation on this list of families.
- Fresh Cheese (fromage frais): A cheese that is eaten without being ripened. They are white, moist and mild.
- Soft-Ripened Cheese or Bloomy (à pâte molle et à croûte fleurie): With a short affinage these are cheeses ripen from the outside in, are soft even when chilled and can be runny at room temperature.
- Blue (à pâte persillées): Penicillium roqueforti mold is introduced into the milk during the processing. After a short aging period, the cheeses are poked, allowing air to enter and activate the bacteria and the growth of the blue veining.
- Washed-Rind Cheese (à pâte molle et à croûte lavée): These cheeses are surface-ripened by washing with brine, wine, brandy, beer or other ingredients throughout the aging process. The washing encourages the growth of bacteria and produces pungent, sometimes very pungent, aromas.
- Uncooked Pressed (Tommes/Fromages à pâte pressée): large, rounds of mountain cheese, can be made of any of the three milks and have a natural rind (they do not receive mold and are not washed, but are brushed and turned). Because they age over several weeks, many of these cheeses are made using raw milk.
- Cooked Pressed (à pâte pressée et cuite): This is a broad category that covers cheeses that may be elastic at room temperature or are hard enough to grate. The cooking and long aging time of alpine style cheeses like Gruyere, Comte or Swiss cheese results in a chewy texture with sweet flavor.
Artisan made cheese is seasonal and accordance with milk production and breeding. Cheese tastes differently when the animals eat differently. Some cheeses are made while the animals in the mountain pastures in the summer eating the tender shoots and flowers, or just after the goat kids are weened. During these times fresh fruity creamy cheeses are in season.
The animals continue to produce milk throughout the winter but they are often kept in barns or small enclosures where their diet is silage not green grass. Pont L’Eveque and Camemberts, for example, are produced during the winter when the cows feed on a maize diet. Beaufort is made year round, but the alpine wheels (d’alpage) made from spring and summer milk are considered the best.
Cheese ripens like fruit, but unlike fruit cheese does not go bad, but simply becomes too ripe. You might notice the flavor is very strong or the smell of ammonia. The date on cheese is the date that it is at its peak, not its expiration date. When you go to the cheesemonger ask what is at its peak that day.
Just as you need to know how to cut a mango it is important to know how to cut cheese to enjoy it the best. When the French cheese platter is passed in a home the invited person serves themselves first. Which means that they get to make the first cuts. How to start? The basic rule is that there needs to be a piece of rind and center on every piece. While some do not eat the rind others love this part as it is often the most flavorful, whereas the center is usually the ripest. All rinds are edible including those rubbed with ash, but some can be bitter or hard. In order to be sure there is rind on each piece a whole round or square cheese should be cut into wedges like a pie. A piece from a larger cheese such as an emmental can be cut across the end in a strip with rind on either end of the strip. Follow this link for diagrams.
Perhaps the most important thing is to have a different knife for every type of French cheese. This avoids getting Roquefort on your Reblochon, but interestingly it is not often that there is a different knife for each cheese on the table neither in a restaurant nor in a home. It is important to taste the cheeses from the mildest to the strongest, so that the strong flavor doesn’t cover the mild one. We’ve heard it said that it is not good etiquette to have seconds from the cheese plate. What is your experience?
Many blue cheeses (Roquefort, Bleu des Causses, Bleu d’Auvergne, etc…) are wrapped in foil to prevent them from drying during the long months of aging, enabling the prized blue mold to develop.
Wine is not the only beverage to serve with cheese. Think local. Where does the cheese come from and what is the beverage there.
The melting properties of cheeses are due to the chemical make-up of their proteins. Young versus old cheeses or cheeses made with rennet versus cheese made with acids melt differently.
We know there are many, many types of French cheese available. «How can anyone govern a nation that has 246 different kinds of cheese?» wondered Charles de Gaulle in 1962. In fact today’s leaders have an even bigger task as the number of varieties is actually closer to 1000 with 450 new cheeses on the market in 2014 alone according to the Figaro Magazine. (English wikipedia says 350-450, French wikipedia says 1000 and yet another site says 1600).
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