French Emmental

Origin: Doubs, the Jura, Belfort, Isere, Savoy, Suisse.This cheese are known since the Romans and always played an important economic part in Franche-comté and in Savoie. Since the XIIIyh century, there were already the " greengrocers " (Company of farmers) where one brought milk to manufacture it.
Cheese is made starting from the cow's milk, pertaining to the category of the cooked pressed pastes. Refining lasts 10 weeks. The average weight of an Emmenthaler cheese grinding stone is 70 kilogrammes. In France, it is produced in the following departments: The VOSGES and adjacent zones of the High Marne - Doubs - the Jura and adjacent zones of the Gold Coast, Ain and the Saone and the Loire - the High Saone - Territory of Belfort - Isere - Savoy - High Savoy. The Rhone. Emmental forms part of the family of the Gruyeres. This type of cheese is known since the Romans. Its production always played an important part into Franche-comté and Savoy. Since the XIIIe century, there were already the " greengrocers " (Company of farmers) where one brought milk to manufacture a grinding stone of “vacherin”. At that time, the farmers manufactured in turn. The cheesemakers, then transported the boiler on their premises to manufacture the round cheese. This method appeared insufficient. One thus built a room suitable to make greengrocers and one substituted the system of the "cheese round" for the manufacture to the count of the community

The development of greengrocers extended in the mountains, then on the plates and the low areas. The name of Emmental would come owing to the fact that the French cheesemakers, driven out of Switzerland by the wars of religion had taken refuge before in the valley of Emme (Swiss). The cheesemakers had taken the practice to manufacture this cheese of large size because it was easier to the peasants of the valley to bring milk at longer distances. The herds are nourished mainly of grass and of hay that is not fermented. Milk is collected daily. The principal characteristics of this cheese are due to the food of the cows without any fermented product, the small size of the cheese dairies and the expertise of the cheesemakers who allow the use of raw milk.The Emmenthaler cheese is obtained starting from very fresh milk, the cheesemaker curdles this milk, while bringing a leaven which he cultivates at the same time as he prepares his “présure”. He then cuts out this curd finely, brews it, heats it until 55°c. The curd grains thus lose much of the whey with which they were soaked. When they are sufficiently drained, the cheesemaker gathers them in a fabric being used as a net. Draining is supplemented by twenty-four hours of energetic pressure, the cheese being regularly turned undre pressure. In cellars of determined temperature and moisture, the cheese piece will be regularly salted and turned over. It takes approximately two months to refine Emmental; A few weeks after its manufacture, the cheeses are transported in cellars especially designed to carry out in the optimum conditions: the atmosphere is hot, wet, carbonic, ammoniacal and is salted. It is at this stage that gaseous emissions occur by fermentation in the mass of cheese. If the paste of cheese is sufficiently flexible and elastic, these gases cause spherical cavities, whose whole constitutes "the openness".For these reasons, the flora of origin can be preserved in milk. These aspects, doubled of a long refining, give a softer texture and a "fruity" taste characteristic of the product. Advised wines: Fruity white. Swiss wines of the cantons of Bern and Argovie.