Qui coupe le fromage?

With thanks to my friend Jordo Schultz for reminding me about this. Your friends at the AWS Pittsburgh Chapter like to help you to feel comfortable in any eating or drinking situation.  Our next tasting will be based on French food and wine, so we thought that we would give you some advice an iconic French food – Cheese!

No meal is complete without a cheese course, but how to cut the cheese like the French is the question. So many rules!  Most of them make sense, though, since how you cut the cheese has to do with leaving a decent serving for the next person, and then leaving the cheese in the best shape to keep it.

The Logic Behind How the French Cut Cheese

There’s reason to the way French people cut their cheese. It’s to ensure a fair distribution between the rind and the dough. The taste is usually stronger next to the rind, and you also want to be polite and leave some dough for everybody. In many French cheeses, you don’t eat the rind. It’s not that it’s bad, but it might be very strong in taste, or too hard to bite into. Storage of the remaining cheese is also taken into consideration.

Individual Servings of French Cheese

Most French methods about cutting cheese show you how to cut the whole cheese (as for serving it in a buffet for example). In a restaurant, the waiter will usually cut the cheeses for you. But the difficult part is knowing how to help yourself to a single serving of cheese when you are presented with a whole selection, at a friend’s house for example.

In this case, you will just cut one cheese serving, for yourself, and that’s when, if you don’t know how to “couper le fromage”, you could make a big faux-pas, and ruin the plateau de fromages!

 Serving French Cheese

If you’re hosting, you should also present your “plateau de fromages” with several knives, so you don’t use the same knife to cut a mild cheese and a Roquefort. If there’s only one knife, you may use your piece of bread to wipe it clean before you cut another cheese.

Quality cheese is expensive in France. It should be offered only once (i.e. you don’t ask for seconds) and people should take only what they can eat. If you over indulge in “le plateau de fromages”, the hosts might be under the impression that they didn’t feed you enough during the meal. In other words, cheese is a delicacy, not a main course.

Storing French Cheese

To store the cheese, put the cheese back in its own wrapper (or box), or change wrapper, so the smell of a stronger cheese doesn’t affect a milder one.

Keep the cheeses in the bottom of the fridge, in the vegetable drawer, which is the coldest and most humid part of the fridge. Or better keep it in a cold cellar. A French cheese expert would say it’s “sacrilège” to put cheese in the fridge since it stops its maturation. But, if you don’t have a cold cellar handy, and don’t want your camembert running miles away, the fridge will have to do!

Soft rind cheeses (Camembert, Brie) and washed rind cheeses (Munster, Livarot) can be kept out of the fridge for 2 to 3 days if they are at their best, if they are left in their packaging and wrapped in a damp cloth. Take the cheeses out of the fridge at least one hour before serving and prepare your cheese platter in advance. A cheese which is too cold will lose a big part of its flavor.

Do you know why round French cheese (such as Camembert) come in a round wood box? It’s to store the open cheese (you may also put the box in the oven to serve a warm cheese – very practical :-)

If you still have a minimum of half a cheese left, then put it back in its wooden box and keep the box on its side, with the open part of the cheese up. It will prevent the cheese from running out of its rind. It will run a bit, but inside the rind, so when you serve it again, just cut the excess of rind and you’ll have a decent looking cheese.

To store and to serve cheese, “une cloche à fromage” is also useful: it will keep insects and odors away when serving on the table.

How to Cut Round French Cheese (Camembert, Coulommiers, Reblochon) And Heart Shaped Cheese (Neufchâtel)

You should cut these French cheeses like you would cut a round cake, into triangle shape portions.

How to Cut Large Size French Round Cheese (Brie)

They are presented whole or in portions (triangle). It’s rare that someone will serve a whole brie cheese (it’s big). But if they do, then cut it like you would a pie. You’ll have a long, thin piece. If it’s too much for one serving. you may cut it in two and leave the half for another guest. If you get a portion of the cheese – much more common, you should follow this technique:

• Cut the “nose” off (but in an angle, never cut the nose off parallel to the rind of the cheese, this is a big “no-no” in cheese etiquette).
• Then you cut another diagonal slice,
• Then you cut perpendicular to the end rind, so each slice will have a bit of end rind on them.

 How to Cut Pyramid Shape French Cheese (Valençay) And Cylinders (Charolais)

Again, cut it like a cake, but this time all the way through the height of the cheese.

How to Cut Square French Cheese (Maroilles)

Cut it like a cake, starting with a diagonal cut, which gives two triangles, then cut each triangle in half and so on (it then leads to 4, 8 or 16 equal parts). If you are only helping yourself, you can do the math and start from the middle of the cheese and cut just a slice.

There is however another technique and its use has to do with storage.

• Cut your square cheese in half.
• Then, starting from the side without the rind (what before was the middle of your cheese) cut parallel slices moving towards the rind.
• When you had enough, you can then push the two parts together and “close” your cheese: now you have a rectangular shape cheese.

With that cut, the dough will be contained inside the rind, and won’t run.

How to Cut French Blue Cheese (Bleu D’Auvergne, Fourme D’Ambert)

The flavors are concentrated in the marbling. Blue cheese cut into slices (Roquefort) should be laid flat, and cut into parallel slices, starting on the core side. Then you can cut smaller portions in a diagonal kind of way.

It’s likely this cheese will not make neat servings and will crumble a bit. It’s an art form to be able to maneuver this cheese with your knife and bread. Do not touch any cheese with your fingers!

How to Cut French Log Cheese (Sainte-Maure De Touraine)

Simply cut your French log cheese in parallel slices, first removing the end part if need be (so you don’t get all the rind). In the case of Sainte-Maure de Touraine, you should first remove the straw to avoid breaking the slices!

How to Cut Slices of Wheels (Comté, Morbier)

The cheese should be considered two parts: the core (close to the center of the wheel) and the rind (the part farther from it).

You start on the core end, by cutting long slices parallel to the rind (so it’s mostly dough, with 2 small rind parts on each end). If the long slice is too big, you may cut it into 2. Then, at about mid-cheese, you change technique: you cut perpendicularly to the rind (so no-one is left at the end with only a piece of rind)

How to Cut Very Hard French Cheese (Extra Old Mimolette)

They can simply be broken or cut into shavings with a vegetable peeler.

How to Serve Yourself Runny French Cheese (Mont D’Or)

It can be served warm or cold. If it’s cold and not very ripe, you may be able to cut it like a pie with a knife. But if it’s warm or ripe (and then very runny inside) you should serve it with a spoon!! You may eat the rind or not, it’s up to you.