Cheese Course

A silver lining during this period of mostly hunkering indoors is the bevy of online classes. I’m taking yoga and photography (separately!) and webinars from racial justice to Bollywood dance. It has been an energizing mix. I recently attended an evening online class about Comté offered by Formaggio Kitchen, a superb cheese shop based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with two other locations in the Boston area and one at the Essex Street Market in New York.

Comté is an unpasteurized cow’s milk cheese from the hilly Jura region in eastern France. It is AOP trademark-protected, which means that to qualify for the Comté label producers must abide by strict rules. The milk, for example, must come from Montbélidarde or French Simmental cows that have been grazing in a delineated area, and that’s just for starters. The end result is an exceptionally flavorful and versatile cheese. It can be enjoyed straight up for snacking or sliced onto sandwiches or melted atop soups or in fondues.

7 varieties of Comté at Formaggio Kitchen (photo by Morgan Mannino)

Comté outsells all other cheeses in France, and we know how discerning they are about their fromage! I fell hard for Comté when I learned that it is in the potato and onion pancakes at Les Gustalins’ stand at Marché Raspail, the Sunday bio (organic) market in Paris. Les galettes d’oignon et pomme de terre are served hot off the griddle and swaddled in paper napkins. I returned many Sundays for more of the same and discovered that the vendor sells them at Marché Batignolles on Saturdays too.

Potato pancakes made fresh and served hot at the Raspail bio market

Marché Raspail in Paris with a line of customers awaiting galettes

By the way, my spellchecker keeps trying to autocorrect Comté to “comet,” and there’s something metaphorical in that. Bite into a good one, and it might send you to the moon.

Formaggio carries more Comté than any cheese shop in the United States. That’s worth bragging rights. Different notes come through depending on what the cows were eating in the pasture, differences in the length of aging the cheese (anywhere from 4 to 24 months), the conditions under which it matures, and the knowhow of those involved in the process. Collectively these variables account for the terroir or distinctive flavor.

Formaggio’s impressive selection of Comté is thanks to owner Ihsan Gurdal’s longstanding business relationship with Marcel Petite, a premier affineur in France. Affineurs oversee the aging or “maturing” of cheeses. It’s a considerable skill, involving tubular rods for tasting and little mallets for drumming the cheese wheels to listen for imperfections. The knowhow of aging cheeses is separate from the knowhow of making them and the knowhow of the dairy farmers.

Formaggio has long offered in-person classes and tastings. Post-Covid, they shifted to online events or “micro classes” via Zoom. These sessions are short, focused, and reasonably priced. When buying a class ticket, one selects a small or a large sample of cheese to nibble on while learning. I chose the small bundle and was pleased with the portion size. Bundles are available for pick-up the day of class. For anyone taking it at a distance, Formaggio will ship cheeses.

Small cheese bundle from Formaggio

The course was taught by cheese buyer Marc Hernandez. We tasted 3 Comtés:  Melodie (aged 6-8 months), Fort Saint-Antoine (12-14 months), and Grand Cru (almost 3 years). Hernandez usually travels to France each year with owner Gurdal to select cheeses. Lucky guys. Very knowledgeable too. I learned a lot in the 45-minute class.

Formaggio’s Marc Hernandez holding a half-wheel of Comté (photo by Morgan Mannino)

There was enough Comté left after the class to repeat a tasting with friends the following evening. We gathered in the yard at a social distance, each with our own plate of cheeses. We ranked our favorites and tried to describe the flavors. The Melodie was described as mild, fruity, easy-going. Fort Saint-Antoine as nutty, earthy, creamy. The Grand Cru as sharp, salty, crunchy. The winner?—drum roll—was Fort Saint-Antoine for the balance of earthy flavor and smooth texture. This is a fun activity to do with friends while socially distanced. Tasting different varieties engages the tastebuds and brings out an appreciation of the nuances in flavors and textures.

Preparing for a Comté tasting with friends

Here’s a tip for storing cheese: Avoid plastic wrap, which suffocates the cheese. Use cheese paper instead, which can be purchased at cheese shops. If you don’t have cheese paper, wrap the cheese in parchment or waxed paper and put it in the crisper drawer of the refrigerator. Remove it an hour before serving to let the flavors fully emerge. Mine never lasts long enough to get moldy, but if yours does then just scrape it off.

Related Posts:

Marché Raspail

Marché Batignolles

Favorite Food Memory from a Paris Market