Back in February or March of last year I visited the Jura mountains. There we visited a cheesemaker (picutred above) specializing in Comte and Maurbier. Both these cheeses are nutty and, depending on the age, slightly sweet. Maurbier has a blue line of ash running through the middle of its slightly chewy flesh. I realize one uses flesh to refer more often to fruit but the decadence and slighlty overwhelming flavor of the cheese makes me feel flesh can be used in this instance.
Our cheese making friend was a very serious man. After observing the cheese making process through a glass partition we were lead down stairs and then outside to take a look at the aging cheeses. They are kept in large rooms with shelves on three sides. We poked our heads into onto two of the perhaps ten aging rooms. Two was enough! Though the brown butter colored cheese rinds looked lovely stacked on shelves of the same color the smell was anything but lovely.
I am a girl who is partial to a lot of strange and often unpopular smells. I loved the smell of horses and find barns cozy and comforting rather than dusty or musty. I find the aroma of stewed cabbage makes me feel at home. But the cheese, the hundreds of ripening Comtes, was too much for me.
I love Comte. It has a wonderful texture and is very versitile but there is a time and place where only one cheese is right for the job. I made chili a few days ago and it turned out wonderfuly. Of course there were no black beans and the can of white beans I added had been cooked in goose fat. I threw in a long green chili and clove after clove of garlic and let it simmer and simmer and in the end it tasted very authentic.
To serve I added green onions and avocado. I had some mini tortilla chips from Monoprix on the side. What was missing from the picture? Chedder. While Comte is perfect for wine tastings and raclet will melt nicely over almost anything I wanted Chedder. A aged Vermont White Chedder would have been perfect or even a sharp yellow...Even the man from Jura would like chedder if he'd only give it a try.
