Today, we’re back in the Isère region for another mountain cheese – the Carré du Trièves.

We’ve already been, geographically and in terms of taste, right in the backyard of today’s cheese.

If you’ll recall, way back on Day 4 we say a Fourme d’Ambert. Now you see the connection, or at lease part of it. Not only do the names of the two cheeses share the same first word ‘fourme’, but their story goes back way further than that. In fact, they are connect to all cheeses in a neat way…

Today’s cheese was a fairly easy one to deal with, and Timo was the first to give it high praise! It was, after all, his favourite type of cheese… goat cheese, albeit a little spiced up.

Reactions on today’s cheese were, without question, heavily leaning to one side…

… the wrong side!

This one took me by surprise.

The look of it didn’t impress me.
The smell impressed me even less.
The descriptions used words like ‘very strong’ and ‘pungent’.

Hint: If the French describe they’re cheeses as strong, it’s generally NOT hyperbole… it is!

Today’s cheese is the last one that arrived in the initial shipment, meaning that we are 1/2-way through our Cheesy Christmas advent calendar. That’s hard to believe. How is it already December 12th!?

I was late to the party on this one… Liz & the kids had it while I was away for the night, I only got to taste is the next day.

Spoiler alert… this was the only cheese to get a perfect score to date!

I’ve got to admit, opening up today’s cheese did not immediately make me feel like it was going to be a treat. Rather, I expected it was going to be something I’d have to ‘stomach’ or ‘endure’.

Tomme is a term that indicates the small, round shape of the cheese and today’s ‘tomme’ was both filled, and covered, with forest-grown, wild garlic. If you garlic lovers think that sounds perfectly delightful, wait until you see the picture…

Today we did things just like the French… cheese was the closing chapter to supper, after a perfect-for-a-winter(-ish)-day pork stew from the slow cooker (for all you language buffs… how’s that for a compound modifier!?).

We’re on day 9 and things keep going up from day 7’s Picodon….

Whether it was a knee-jerk reaction to yesterday’s very strong Picodon or a genuine appreciation, today’s Timanoix was a hit! Smell… taste… texture… everything was back up on the higher end of the scale and we rated it among the best to date.

One interesting thing that we learned today is that secularization is having an impact on the cheese industry. Who knew that man’s increasingly greater withdrawal from God would affect cheese, yet it does!