Midsummer Cheese Musings

We’re just past midsummer, the height of the goats and sheeps cheese season and it is natural to take stock of how this year’s season has gone so far. 

In dull British February we take heart when a little hint of springtime arrives on our counters from Provence in the shape of Mistralou & Buchette de Manon or Lingot de Saint Nicolas from Herault in Occitanie.  These little herbed beauties remind us that summer will be with us eventually.

While seasonality has been bred out of most cows so that they will milk and calve at any time of the year (although there are still exceptions like Salers cows), goats and sheep are less commonly deseasoned.  For smaller herds it isn’t viable, and their cheeses tend to disappear from our counters sometime in November.

This year however we have discovered that the very cheeses we named before will have a shorter season than usual and while it is easy to romanticise a bucolic existence for these farms in sunny climates and apply that to the whims of nature and the animals themselves, the reasoning behind it is pure and simple economics.

The origins of land distribution and management systems in France and the UK which ultimately lead to farming and cheesemaking can be traced to the villa system of the late Roman Empire. By the Middle Ages, this had become the manorial system.  Land-owning Lords of the Manor housed their extended family in their main manor house, cultivating crops & rearing livestock on their land using labourers or serfs.  These serfs were also able to feed their families from the little parcels of land they worked but paid a share of everything grown or reared to the Manor.  Over time as commercial activity increased, the rents paid to the Lord of the Manor were less likely to be crops & animals and more likely to be financial.  In the UK, the manorial way of managing the land gave way to a less official system whereby land could be bought and sold more readily. However, it isn’t hard to see the echoes of that in the situations of tenant farmers today and their relationships with their landlords.  France remained more rigidly feudal for longer however, with the distribution of land dramatically shaken up by the Revolution between 1789 & 1799.  After that it was possible for farmers to buy parcels of land to own for themselves as was the case in the Delorme family who produce our Salers and Cantal au lait de Salers.  Farming then became more widespread and still makes a significant contribution to the French national economy.

In both France and the UK there was an alternative.  Land was not only owned by the state but also by the church.   The monastic order in both countries contributed to the way land was farmed and indeed to the products that were created from this, one of which being cheese.  The tradition of monasticism really began from individual people taking themselves away from the day-to-day life to reflect on God and live in remote places, echoing the examples of the prophet Elijah and John the Baptist in The Bible. Eventually as it became a more popular vocation, the individual hermits became aware of each other and began to form communities with worship as a common goal.  From these sprung monasteries, the first of which is reputed to be established by St Pachonius in 346 CE.  Monasteries had humble beginnings as recorded in 530 CE by Benedict of Nursia in his book of precepts for monks living communally under the authority of an abbot living a life of peace, prayer and work, The Rule of St Benedict  However, the authority and power of the church and by extension its monastic orders grew and by the 13^th Century owned quite considerable land and held quite considerable authority.  Monks were in fact some of the elites of their day, a status that could be achieved by anyone sufficiently pious regardless of their station in life, unlike achieving status in the secular world.  Monks were educated, could read and write, had long periods of contemplative time and often lived in more hygienic conditions than those of the general population at the time.  Monasteries were often situated by a river, allowing for running water and disposal of waste.   Perhaps inevitably this paved the way for not only cultivating crops and rearing livestock on their land but also food production notable examples of which are wine, ale & cheese.  Ordinarily we don’t tend to talk about monastic cheeses in midsummer as they are often washed rind cheeses which tend to be more popular in the autumn or winter, although that really does not have to be the rule!  Washed rind cheeses were perhaps an inevitable consequence of a place producing not only cheese but also alcohol as both ale and eau de vie could be used to cure the rinds.  They also provided a rich, savoury and umami hit to the monks’ largely plant-based diet and satisfied the need for big flavours on the days of the year in which meat was not allowed. Munster is one of these, recorded as being made in 1371 by Benectine monks in Germany.  The name itself derives from monasterium.  Epoisses is another, recorded as being made in the 16^th Century at the Cistercian monastery of Epoisses.  In the UK, although during the reign of Henry VIII the monasteries were destroyed as the country broke away from the Catholic Church, we have Cistercian monks (invited from France after 1066 by William the Conqueror) to thank for Wensleydale cheese which at that time was made from sheeps milk and used to blue naturally like an English Roquefort. In Switzerland, perhaps the most obvious example of all is Tete de Moine which was developed at the Abbey of Bellelay in the 12^th century but came to prominence after 1790 and is now made on a much larger scale.

Lingot de Saint Nicolas is a monastic cheese that does seem more suited to midsummer as it is a lactic sheeps milk cheese infused with thyme oil.  The oil is made by the monks from the Monastère de St Nicolas de la Dalmerie, Herault, themselves using herbs they collect from the surrounding garrigue.  You would expect, in midsummer that its production is in full swing but as we recently discovered its season is strikingly curtailed.

Unlike a private or indeed tenant farmer who need to get the maximum yield from their land and animals, the monks have less need to make money. Provided they afford the upkeep of their monastery, charitable donations and can feed and clothe themselves, they have enough.  By contrast, a tenant or land-owning farmer has more financial pressure and will be more ikely to extend any making season as long as they can.   Meanwhile Père Gabriel, the cheesemaker of Lingot de Saint Nicolas, begins his season when the sheep start milking and finishes production by the end of July.  Part of his reasoning is that the cheese creates enough money for the monastery’s needs.  Partly it also is a reflection of time.  The religious life isn’t one that attracts too many young people to join it and Père Gabriel himself is looking for a slower pace of life as he gets older.

Some farmers outside the bubble of the religious life, as they plan for retirement and succession, can afford to simplify too.  The Mastos who make our Mistralou and Buchette have decided to reduce their flock this year, conscious that a farming life is physically hard and must be sustainable.  Their Mistralou we still have in good numbers but it is likely that they will be disappearing from our counters sooner than usual this year.

While seasonality is very much part of the calendar for smaller herds of either rare breed cows, goats or sheep, it isn’t just the natural order of the passing of the year that can dictate when a cheese is made.  To our minds it is more interesting than that as it reflects the decisions and choices of the inspiring, talented and dedicated people who make the cheeses we love and look forward to every year.

NOTE: Due to small scale production we have not in the past made Lingot de Saint Nicolas available online but as of Monday 7th July that is set to change so you can all enjoy this lovely monastic cheese before the season finishes.