Marché Biologiques

On our last day in Paris we shopped at the Batignolles Marché Biologique, an organic (bio, the French say) outdoor market open at this location only on Saturdays. Business at the stalls was brisk as shoppers who care about organic foods stocked up for the week ahead. Our group was in search of plums, watercress, shallots, cheese, duck breast, fennel and crimini mushrooms.








Mission accomplished we tied the aprons on once again Chez Madelaine to prepare a sumptuous lunch of Fennel and Mushroom Salad and Terrine of Fois Gras,




Duck Breast with Red Wine and Lentils,




...and a pretty, purple Plum Tart that was apparently devoured too quickly to even get a photo of it while still whole.

It was all such a blur of wonderful fromage everyday of the trip, but I believe it was on this last day that we tasted the cheese that topped all other cheeses. An Aquitane, raw sheep's milk Roquefort.

- Roquefort is a good example of one of the oldest cheeses on record. It's a raw sheep's milk cheese from Larzac, Averyron in the Aquitaine region of France. It has been called the King of Cheese and the Cheese of Kings. The milk has 52% butterfat and the curds are cut by hand, not a machine, to help them release their whey, then are packed into molds with a layer of powdered penicillium Roquefort shaken over the surface, and then more curds packed on top of that. Industrially produced Roquefort cheese has the penicillium injected into the curds as a liquid through needles. But all versions of Roquefort cheese come from sheep's milk collected from that particular region. It is aged 60 to 90 days, being turned several times per day to keep the moisture evenly distributed. The rounds are aged in the famous caves of Roquefort, which are catacombs inside limestone hills. The air current is cool and humid, creating a perfect environment for the cheese to "affinage" or age, and the air naturally contains the penicillium. A charter to control and protect its quality was signed in 1411 by King Charles the VI of France, but the legend of its origin is that 2000 years ago, on a hot summer's day, a shepherd had his daily lunch in a leather sack, some rye bread topped with fresh sheep cheese, and stuck it in a nearby cave to keep it cool until lunch. The sheep were threatened by wolves, so the shepherd quickly took his sheep from the area, leaving his lunch behind. Reluctant to return the next day, he grazed his flocks on other hills. Three months later he returned with his sheep to that same hillside and found his sandwich. The cheese had developed a blue mold from the penicillium-laden air it was exposed to in the cave. He found the taste was wonderfully nutty and slightly sharp, and the rest is history...

From: For the Love of Cheese by Gale Gand

Epicurean.com