Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/724773
7 6 | t h e c l e v e r r o o t DELICIOUS FRENCH CHEESE COMTÉ IS A UNIQUE PRODUCT Craed in the Spirit of Cooperation i by Christie Dufault s I CLAIM IT: Comté has been one of my favorite cheeses since I first tasted it decades ago. I cherish the flavors, texture, and complexity of Comté. I value its diversity, I pur- chase it regularly, I savor it often. But until recently I never appreciated the full story behind Comté cheese-making. Sure, I knew the basics: raw milk from a specific breed of cows raised in the Alpine pastures of the Jura; aged up to two years depending on the desired style. On a recent trip to eastern France, I learned the compelling story that results in this spectacular, one-of-a-kind cheese. Comté is a PDO (Protected Designation of Origin) cheese, officially recognized as such by the French government in 1958. But the story of Comté begins hundreds of years earlier, per- haps thousands. Cheese, as we know, has long been a source of preserving milk and providing humans with nourishment. But the qualities of Comté have been refined over the centuries, and today the complex network of participants in Comté production all contribute to the sublime cheese we know. The thing is, unlike other artisanal cheeses, Comté is the result of a fully cooperative process. In Comté production there are three equally important participants: the farms, the creameries and the aging facilities. In the Jura, these are respectively known as the fermes, the fruitières, and the caves d'affinage. As one member of the cooperative put it to me, "No farms, no cheesemakers, no affineurs, no Comté." Montbéliarde cows graze in the alpine meadows of the Jura. Wheels of Comté are wrapped in the band that indicates the PDO.