Morbier

Well, as the saying goes, you live and learn ... and I am learning a lot on this cheese challenge of mine. I have seen Morbier cheese in the supermarkets and my local Fromagerie many times, but have never bought any. I have always thought that the marking you see through the middle was a 'blue' vein. As blue cheeses are not on the top of my list of favourite cheeses, I suppose that maybe why I have never bought any.

Well it turns out that it is not a 'blue' vein at all, its a layer of ash! And Morbier, AOC 2000, is very nice! It is medium soft and mild - and you do not taste any ash. Morbier cheese takes its name from a small village of the same name in the Franche-Comté region of France.

The ash layer is now added for tradition's sake, but originally it separated the layer of evening milk from the layer of morning milk. In the evening, Comté (yet to appear on the cheese challenge) cheesemakers would take the left over curd and place it in a mould and leave it overnight, waiting for the morning milking so that they could fill the mould. To prevent a rind forming on the evening curd overnight it was covered with a layer of ash.