It may be an unusual way to sample cheese. Most cheese tastings consider the type of cheese, the cheesemaker’s techniques, the milk - whether goat, sheep or cow. But for the Montreal launch of my book, Apples to Oysters: A Food Lover’s Tour of Canadian Farms, I asked Alain Besré of La Fromagerie du Marché Atwater, in Montreal’s Atwater farmer’s market, to organize a tasting at the Bon Appetit Bookstore that pays tribute to the farmer.
Alain understood my question perfectly. The Atwater cheese shop sells the largest selection of Quebec cheeses - some 150 — and Alain, the man responsible for sourcing those cheeses, makes a point of visiting each farm before deciding to carry a cheese. He wants to know that the barn is clean and animals well cared for. In other words, he wants to ensure the farmer is a pro.
One of the first decisions a farmer makes is what milk to supply a cheesemaker. As for cows, 95 percent of all those milked in Canada are from a single breed: Holsteins. Farmers don’t choose the black-and-white-spotted beasts because they produce quality milk. Or because they look cute in TV commercials for that matter. They choose Holsteins as they have been bred into milk machines that supply factory barns with quantity - thousands of gallons of the white stuff.
But the focus on improving one breed came at the expense of diversity. For instance, the Canadienne cow, bred in this country for its ability to withstand cold Canadian winters and also noted for its excellent milk quality for cheese, is now endangered. There are only about 300 cows left. And the poor Holstein, though the most popular gal in dairy barns, has lost her vigour. Bred for one purpose, milk production, most Holsteins are hobbled by poor feet and survive less than five years in industrial milk barns.
Many Quebec dairy farmers are changing this sad story. For instance, one fromagerie is breeding vigour back into their Holstein herd and feeding them organic grains. The result is Le Comtomme — a flavourful semi firm cheese with a clean, pleasing finish.
Others are choosing neglected breeds. A group in Hébert has produced the Curé Hébert from the Ayrshire, a Scottish cow. The semi firm has a pleasant floral smell and a sharp milk taste. L’Hercule, made from the milk of Jersey cows, is another semi firm, though richer and denser.
For a fourth tasting, Alain served up the Tomme de Grosse Ile, the cheese I wrote about in my Quebec chapter. Farmer Frédéric Poulin chose the Brown Swiss, a rugged breed raised in the Swiss Alps. The beautiful brown cows also produce milk with luscious butterfat content. And, in this case, that rich vanilla flavour is accented by a special feed, the foin de batture or grass that grows by the seashore of the remote Île-aux-Grues. The grass is wholly unique to this area and Frédéric’s cows are the only herd on the island, indeed in the world, to graze on this special grass. No wonder then that the cheese tastes wholly unique: deep and herbal, of the salt water marsh grasses.
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