A cheese created to mark a monastery's thousandth year

This year, the historic and charming town of Talloires on Lake Annecy celebrates the 1,000th year of the existence of L’Abbaye de Talloires – “Le Millénaire de L’Abbaye de Talloires 1018-2018”.

 

L'Abbaye de Talloires (source: www.abbaye-talloires.com)

However, its historic religious roots went beyond a history of 1,000 years. The Via Consularis of Milan based in Strasbourg reached Geneva via the shores of Lake Annecy, probably near Talloires. Lothaire II, great grandson of King Charlemagne, rejected his queen Thiberge and ordered her to stay in Talloires in 866. Here she remained until her death. During her time in Talloires, Queen Thiberge built a “cella”, a small chapel with shelters to host monks passing by in the country. Later, the monks who decided to settle here had a monastery constructed. The monastery twice succumbed to the ravages of fire during the 17th Century. In 1674, the monastery was rebuilt and Pope Clement X had the priory insignia displayed on the Abbaye Royale. The monastery was completed in 1681. After the French Revolution, the monastery was turned into a winemaking enterprise and later, horse stables in 1840. It was in 1862 that it became an inn and the first hotel-restaurant on the shores of Lake Annecy.



Raymond Michel (Fromager Alain Michel’s father) was contacted to create a cheese to celebrate the abbey’s 1,000th year of existence. During the research in historic archives and with the help of historians, Monsieur Michel pieced together fragments of information that gave him insight into monastic life and particularly their cheesemaking practice in the 17th Century. He was then able to develop the recipe for a cheese that the monks could have been making. It would be something between a Tome and a Tamié, and it would have a thick crust so that it could be preserved for a longer time. This would require rubbing the cheese regularly with morge (solution to rub cheese during affinage). Inspired by a word that appeared in the archives of the period, he named this cheese “Le Florion des Moines”.

Raymond Michel holding a piece of Le Florion des Moines

With a preliminary recipe in hand, Monsieur Michel needed to find a quality supply of milk to experiment the production of this cheese. He contacted André and Monique Boistard at La Ferme in Col de La Forclaz in Talloires-Montmin where they keep 28 cows (mostly Abondance with some Montbéliarde) raised at an altitude of 1,157 metres. (Col de La Forclaz is better known as a paragliding station.) It took several attempts before the right shape and flavours were achieved. First few attempts resulted in a cheese that was too flat, which could not be commercialised. It was not until June this year when the veteran pair (André the cheesemaker at 72 years old, and Raymond the affineur at 81 years old) agreed that they had finetuned the cheese recipe. And voilà - Le Florion des Moines! The cheese is now sold at all the shops of Alain Michel and at La Ferme, as well as being served at the restaurant at L’Abbaye de Talloires.

La Ferme at Col de La Forclaz
(and if you eat here: don't forget to order the seriously delicious beignets de pomme de terre!)

  

This is such a good story that I asked Monsieur Michel if I could ask him some questions about this venture. His response surpassed my expectations – he agreed to take me to the farm to see the production of this cheese! We went on a Tuesday evening in August.



Milking takes place twice a day, morning and evening. Each milking produces about 300 litres to make 15-18 rounds of Le Florion des Moines. We arrived in time to see the evening production – we arrived at around 5:40 pm when milking was almost finished and the production started about 6 pm.

The collected milk is held in a copper vat and heated to 35°C before the addition of traditional rennet. The milk is mixed well with the rennet until the surface is no longer turbulent. The vat is then left for the milk to curdle. This takes about 30 minutes when the surface of the curdled milk resembles the surface of soft jelly or tofu that springs back when pulled away from the rim. (This is easily tested with the back of the hand.) The curdled milk is then cut to create smaller curds. This is done horizontally in an almost zigzag form with a curd cutter and then it is lifted to repeat the same step vertically. This results in small curds, about 1.5-2 cm in size. The curds are left alone for a short while as the whey is being pushed out of the curds. The curds are then stirred around to make them even smaller, almost pea-sized. This continues for about 10 minutes when the whey continues to leave the curds. Part of the whey is removed carefully from the surface (this whey will be used to feed pigs). A piece of muslin cloth is now fitted into a large container and the mixture of whey and curds are poured over the cloth. Each side is lifted gently so that the whey drains through the cloth and runs down the side of the draining table into the whey collection container.  

Andre explaining to Lauriane, Geoffrey and Monsieur Michel the curd cutting process

Draining the remaining of the whey from the curds

The relatively well-drained pea-sized (petit pois!) curds are gathered and put into perforated plastic moulds fitted with a piece of thick gauze on the bottom (the mould measures about 14 cm in diameter and 6 cm high). During the filling process, the curds are gently pressed down by hand to aid further drainage and the moulds are filled to just a convex shape at the top. 

Gathering the curds to put into moulds (sanitised hands!)

Filled moulds

Once all the moulds are filled, they are turned over and returned to the mould. After this first turning, the moulds are turned over almost every hour, about twice before 10 pm. In the morning, the cheese is unmoulded and salted on one side. Half an hour later, it is salted on the other side. The finished cheese stays at the farm for about a week before being transported to Alain Michel’s cave d’affinage for 60 more days of affinage. The cheese is rubbed with morge (or cheese-rubbing solution consisting of whey and salt) twice every week at the beginning and less frequently towards the end of affinage. In total, Le Florion des Moines requires an affinage of around 70 days before it is ready to be commercialised. 

The morning production being salted in the evening

According to Monsieur Michel, the typical Savoyard yield in cheesemaking is 10 litres of milk for 1 kg of cheese, about 10%. With affinage, the cheese loses about 20% of weight, exact loss depending on humidity and temperature of the cave d’affinage and the length of affinage. For Le Florion des Moines, each cheese weighs about 1.6 kg immediately after production and with affinage, it becomes about 1.2-1.3 kg.

Le Florion des Moines in the cave d'affinage

How does it taste? It has a thick crust, thicker than a Tamié. It is a soft-ripened morged-rind raw cow’s milk cheese, with orange/brown spots on the grey rind. The paste is a cream colour, supple and soft. The paste has fruity (pineapple), creamy yogurt, as well as sweet hay notes, complemented with savoury nuances, and earthy character from the rind. The texture is rich and unctuous, melting on the palate, displaying balanced but not pronounced acidity and a persistent buttery finish. It is a sophisticated cheese for the initiated and the gourmands.

Le Florion des Moines is a modern interpretation of historic cheesemaking, made with the milk from one herd of cows on one single farm, and carefully matured by one affineur. A unique creation!

I hope we will still be able to taste this cheese after the celebrations are completed on 22 September 2018. You can read about this programme of celebrations at Talloires at: https://www.talloires-lac-annecy.com/fr/explorer/millenaire-de-l-abbaye-de-talloires