Les Fromagers de Tradition @ la Fromagerie de la Houssaye

What makes a great cheese?  Contented animals, good raw milk, traditional methods of production, know how, but most important - passion! 

Serge le Chevallier at Les Fromagers de Tradition, la Fromagerie de la Houssaye makes some of the most amazing cheeses from Normandy you will ever encounter. Livarot and Pont l'Eveque are the specialities of the house. All made with raw milk from their herds in the lieu-dit called la Houssaye, located in the Pays d'Auge, these are award winning cheeses.  

The Livarot won the Silver medal and the Pont l'Eveque won the Gold medal at the 2013 Salon d'Agriculture in Paris. We had the privelege of meeting Monsieur le Chevallier at the Fromagerie where he was kind enough to give us a tour of his facility and explain their fabrication techniques and then let us taste his cheeses in situe.  

A natural presenter, le Chevallier regaled us with the techniques of this artisanal process he and his 17 employees use for cheese making. It was truly fascinating to learn that a Livarot, round in form, and a Pont l'Eveque, square in shape, start out exactly the same and do not start to become their respective cheeses until around the salage (salting stage). 

While Livarot, otherwise known as le Colonel, is big and meaty, a very masculin cheese; Pont l'Eveque is soft and milky, like milk fresh from the cow and could be described as feminine. We tasted these cheeses with a beautiful, crisp white wine, but some say a dry cidre brut would work equally well. 

With their cousin, Camembert, these cheeses make up the Normand big three and typify all that is good about Normandy. For us a Domaines & Terroirs, we were truly honoured to be able to sample the very best of these cheeses with a most talented cheese maker.

Why Raw Milk?

A quote at Graindorge in Normandy

Terroir: Is a camembert a camembert if it isn’t made in Normandy?

People always ask me about this word and what it really has to do with cheese. Terroir is often translated as the ‘taste of the land’ and is a real and yet ephemeral blend of the land, the tradition and the character of any regional product. Cheese is a true expression of the concept of terroir, perhaps even more so, in my opinion, than wine.  

Everything within a region, from the animals, climate, vegetation, water and soil, has an effect on the milk which is the nascence of all artisanal cheeses. Combine these factors with the production techniques specific to each cheese, the traditions transmitted down through generations and the quality of the final affinage, and only then can one finally begin to understand the meaning of terroir. So while one can follow the recipe for making a certain cheese, the end product will be an expression of the terroir it represents. Hence, a camembert-like cheese made in Vermont or California might be similar to a Camembert de Normandie, it will recall its roots and therefore be unique.