Cheesy Christmas 21: Séchon de Chèvre

Anyone up for some goat cheese from the mountains?
That’s what on the menu for today’s cheese…

(Wondering ‘Why the daily cheese posts?’…
read this 🙂 )

I went looking for a bit of background on this cheese, as I normally do but it appears to be a rather simple, nondescript cheese, short on description. There was one other time, however, that we had a séchon cheese as part of the Cheesy Christmas offering… it was day 9’s Séchon de Vache. Ironically, there’s a connection to today’s cheese beyond the name.

Let me give you what I’ve got…

Day #21: Séchon de Chèvre

Name: Séchon de Chèvre
If you’ll recall, from day 9, I mentioned even then that description of the ‘séchon’ was a bit scant. I mentioned that it would not be too far a stretch to say that ‘séchon’ was etymologically related to the French verb ‘secher’ (to dry) although I’m not certain. The one thing that is certain, is that it’s a goat cheese, as is indicated by the word ‘chèvre’. The folks at Les Alpages indicate that it’s also known, by some, as a chevreton.
Region: Isère
Same as the séchon de vache, although it doesn’t appear to be produced there based on a PDO (Protected Designation of Origin), rather, just coincidence.
Milk: raw goat’s milk
Our Score: 3.4/5
It would appear as though we enjoyed this séchon less than the séchon de vache back on the 9th. Where today’s only garnered a 3.4, the cow’s milk version pleased us to the extent of a 4.5. Two of the comments were that it was ‘a bit dry / chewy’, and ‘perhaps it’d have been better melted’. With that, we come to the connection I mentioned above. We mentioned that the séchon de vache reminded us of the kind of cheese used in a ‘chèvre chaud’ (warm goat cheese), typically on a pizza, a salad or a croque monsieur. The guide du fromage states just that, that it’s usually either served on a platter or as part of a chèvre chaud dish. One thing I did just love about it though, was it’s perfectly round little portion size. It’s only about 200g (7 ounces), so not huge, but just perfect for a dégustation (tasting).

So… our take-away?
If we get a séchon in the future, it’ll be a séchon de vache, or it’ll be used on a chèvre chaud dish… not just eaten off the cheese platter.

Cheese quote of the day

Another rather long cheese quote today. I prefer the shorter, more quippy ones, but this one won me over by (a) its wonderful descriptiveness, (b) its long list of cheeses and (c) the heroine’s French name: Miss Petitfour (French for ‘nibbles / appetizers / hors d’oeuvres’). It comes from Anne Michael’s book ‘The Adventures of Miss Petitfour”, a Mary Poppins-esque character and her 16 cats.

““When Miss Petitfour made a fancy salad, Minky watched the way the lettuce leaves bent under the slight weight of the Parmesan; when Miss Petitfour had cheese toast for tea, Minky noticed how the cheddar melted into every little crevice and crater of the toast. She licked her whiskers greedily when Miss Petitfour lowered her hand to feed her snippets and smidgens, pinches and wedges, slices and crumbs. Minky loved all cheese–Swiss cheese, Edam cheese, Gruyere and Roquefort, Brie cheese and blue cheese, mozzarella and Parmesan, hard cheese, crumbly cheese, creamy cheese, lumpy cheese. Minky even had a cheese calendar that she kept with, which Miss Petitfour had given to her for Christmas. Each month there was a big picture of a different kind of cheese in a mouthwatering pose: blue cheese cavorting with pears, cheddar laughing with apples, Gruyere lounging with grapes, Edam joking with parsley.”

Happy Cheesy Christmas….
See you tomorrow for cheese #22