If the cheese says “Roquefort” on the label, then it can come only from this village in the Causses Mountains in southern France.
In 1407 King Charles VI gave the townspeople here the exclusive right to put the Roquefort name on their famous ivory-colored cheese veined with blue mold.
The king declared that the cheese must be made according to traditional methods and only from milk of sheep that graze in designated areas. More recent laws have confirmed that right, and large companies and a few small producers in the village of 880 today make more than 20,000 tons of Roquefort every year.
The village is about an hour-and-a-half drive northeast of Toulouse. The road twists and turns past large clusters of bright yellow wildflowers; cliffs are covered with chicken wire to prevent loose rocks from falling on passing cars.
The village nestles against a cliff 2,000 feet above sea level. The grayish buildings made of limestone from the surrounding mountains blend into the landscape. Only their red tile roofs add a touch of color. Caravans of large refrigerated trucks make their way slowly down the mountain from the village to markets throughout France.
No sheep appear on the slopes, but that is not surprising. Milk for Roquefort cheese comes only from a special breed of sheep called Lacaune, which are so fragile that they must be kept indoors during the heat of the day. They are put out to graze only during the cool early morning and late afternoon.
The largest producer is the Societe Anonyme des Caves et Des Producteurs Reunis de Roquefort, but thankfully, the logo on its labels simply says “Societe.” It’s slow-going up the winding mountain roads to visit the cellars where Societe cheese is ripened.
But once there, high-tech indoor dioramas contrast with the low-tech countryside. The first diorama shows how a natural disaster created a unique, ideal environment for ripening cheese. The first scene shows the geological layers of the region when dinosaurs roamed the land.
Then the lights go out, and New Age music, blinding strobe lights and earsplitting claps of thunder announce the spectacle of the earth cracking open and crumbling.
The lights go on in the diorama to show the upheaval of the earth millions of years ago when a mountain collapsed. It created a pile of rocks that looks like a sponge with cracks and holes and caves. The diorama transforms again to show the bucolic village of Roquefort built on top of the ancient rubble. Roquefort cheese is left to ripen in these natural “cellars” beneath the village.
A French-speaking tour guide, dressed in a black wrap-around coat piped in the trademark Societe green, leads the way down narrow stairs into the cellars. Visitors in-the-know have brought sweaters and windbreakers to fight the chill; others are left to shiver.
More dioramas illustrate the history of Roquefort cheese. One depicts the legend of a young shepherd who was attracted by a beautiful shepherdess. Hearsay has it that he left some bread and curds made from ewe’s milk in the entrance of a damp cave and set off to follow her. Months later, when he returned, he found his cheese marbled with greenish-blue lines. He ate it anyway and was delighted by its taste.
Voila! Roquefort cheese was “discovered.”
But according to other dioramas, the cheese from Roquefort already was being enjoyed by the Romans in A.D. 76, and during the Middle Ages the rent for farms around Roquefort could be paid not only in silver but also in cheese.
The tour continues underground through labyrinthine passages into the cellars where cheese is left to ripen. The natural underground caverns have been reinforced with vaulted ceilings, but nature alone has created the micro-climate that makes Roquefort unique.
Changes in temperature above ground create variations in air pressure, forcing air down through the cracks in the rocks. Nature alone is in charge, keeping the temperature in the cellars at a constant 46 degrees. Visitors can hold their hands up to holes in the walls and feel cold drafts. It is as though the cellars are breathing, with new air sucked in and old air released three or four times a day.
Visitors can peek into crevices to see lush green ferns and mosses that thrive in this cold, damp climate where the humidity remains at 95 percent. This is also the perfect environment for the Pencillium roqueforti spores to develop and create the distinctive veins of Roquefort cheese.
The tour guide makes sure that visitors understand that this Penicillum, which flourishes naturally in the underground eco-system of the cellars, is not in the same family as Penicillium notatum used to make antibiotics.
In the maze of cellars, the round loaves of white cheese, almost the size of a stack of six dinner plates, stand on their sides on old oak shelves. While Roquefort cheese may have a reputation for its unpleasant odor, here the air smells pure and only a bit musty from the damp wood.
Seeing the loaves of cheese lined up row upon row, a small boy sitting on his father’s shoulders views the scene and pipes up in French, “Yum, cheese is so good.” In this case he’s right.
Roquefort cheese is made according to specific guidelines to insure authenticity. The milk from one ewe, which produces about 3 pints daily, produces only about 66 pounds of Roquefort cheese each year. In fact, a ewe produces so little milk that it would take 30 sheep to equal the production of just one cow.
For sanitation reasons, visitors are not allowed to see where the ewe’s milk is transformed into cheese. The guide, however, points out the special tool, looking like an instrument of medieval torture, that is used to pierce holes in the loaves of cheese so gas produced by fermentation can escape and the Penicillium roqueforti can work its way through.
The Penicillium roqueforti is a crucial, secret ingredient that transforms the cheese. While the spores live freely in the damp cellars, they are cultivated for the cheesemaking process. The tour guide holds up a glass bottle filled with a special bread dough made from rye and wheat flour. Mold spores are added, and the dough is left to grow old and rot. She holds up another bottle with the end product. The dough has disappeared, and nothing remains except a spoonful of grayish-green powder that is added to the ewe’s milk at the beginning of the cheesemaking process.
As the cheese ripens, the mold works its way through the loaves, leaving bluish-green veins. When the cheese has ripened for two or three weeks it is wrapped air-tight to slow the process. The tour guide shows how a heavy piece of foil is wrapped meticulously around each round of cheese. She does it slowly, but says that a skilled worker can wrap 100 rounds in an hour.
At the end of the tour, the guide explains that the best way to store Roquefort cheese is to re-create as nearly as possible the environment of the cellars in which it ripened. She says to wrap it in a damp cloth, seal it in an airtight plastic bag or box, then place it in the vegetable drawer of the refrigerator. Because the cheese cannot withstand numerous temperature changes, take out only as much as you need at one time. It should be eaten at room temperature.
Roquefort is best cut with a “guillotine,” a wire gadget used in many cheese shops. Some shopkeepers also use a length of wire with wooden handles at each end. If you don’t have these tools, heat a knife blade in hot water before cutting.
To prove how best to serve Roquefort, small samples of the cheese at room temperature are served at the end of the tour upstairs in a cavernous, warm, wood-paneled room. The reactions are extreme.
A few people grimace and grumble and can’t swallow it fast enough, while others marvel at its creaminess and savor its distinctive pungent flavor with just a faint reminiscence of the mustiness of the cellars.
