Hello dear friends,
In the March box we had a Chabichou, a goat cheese from the Loire area, more precisely from Haut-Poitou, which is definitely worth mentioning. It has the characteristic shape of a conical stump and its bark shows white or bluish mold. A small cheese with a great taste. It tastes good at any time of the year - served on a cheese platter or grilled with some toast and a salad.
In the holy family of cheeses that have their refuge along the Loire, this three-cheese high occupies a special place. The Chabichou may be small, but its history dates back to the time of the Arab invasions. The Saracens, who had settled in Poitou with their women and children before they were defeated at Poitiers in 732, called their goats and the cheese made from them chebli, after the Arabic word for goat, before the French farmers added the word chou and den called cheese chou à chabi. Under the name Chabichou, the cheese was praised in writing for its uniqueness as early as 1782.
Production has hardly changed since then :
The curd obtained from the milk mixed with rennet after milking is scooped with a ladle into the holey molds, which have the appearance of conical stumps. After shaping and salting, the cheese, which is now the size of an apple, matures in a drying room for at least ten days, sometimes a few months. The dough initially has a fine consistency, but becomes firmer and more crumbly as it matures. However, it retains its wonderful, creamy, mild and slightly sour taste.
There are still five farms that produce the cheese and six large dairies. Two professional refiners take care of the finishing. Together they process around 35,000 hectoliters of goat milk, which is supplied by 450 dairy farmers.
For a small cheese 6 centimeters high and 5 to 6 centimeters in diameter, weighing about 150 grams, you need about 1.3 liters of goat's milk!!
You can enjoy this little three-cheese treat with good Sauvignon wines, or you can also discover small local winemakers, such as Neuville-de-Poitou or Dissay.
An excellent treat! We love it!