with knives, forks and plates, and naturally a basket of fresh and warm, sliced baguette.
“Five cheeses, cheeses of the Auvergne, local…” She picked up her knife and fork and leant towards our table looking from one diner to the other.
“This,” she said, “is the Cantal — very popular throughout France now and very ancient. I think it was mentioned by Pliny the Elder in the first century BC.” I nodded, and she skilfully cut a slice and put it on my plate.
Cantal is from the milk of the beautiful Salers cows. It is pressed twice — once when the curd is broken up and salted and the second time when it is pressed into its final mold. You can buy it young, jeune when it is at least thirty days old, medium or entre dou, when it is between two and six months in age, and vieux, when it is more than six months old. As in so many instances vieux is…best. Cantal cheese comes from what in the Auvergne is known as the Pay Vert.
Saint Nectaire comes from the high country around this little town, the communes of the Puy-de-Dôme (of the famous views), and from specified areas in the Cantal. It has been around since before Louis X1V. It is creamy, firm but springy in the mouth, and has perhaps a suggestion of mould, and it has a certain fame. Yes, we would have a slice, or tranche.
Bleu d’Auvergne is, of course, a blue cheese, again from cow’s milk and is very similar to Fourme d’Ambert. Its area of production is extensive and takes in part of the Lozere and even the Lot. And it is delicious. Another slice? Oui, merci.
The final cheese that I was tempted to take was from a farmer or fermier from the distant town of Saint-Jean-de-Chapteuil, the home of that Jules Romain fellow. And in addition that cheese was from goat’s milk, a change from the cow’s milk cheeses, splendid though they are. The cheese is dry, soft and full of flavour.
What a way to finish the last of the bottle, and what an excuse.
There is an excellent little book French Cheeses written by (yes, it’s true) Kazuko Masui and Tomoko Yamuda and they attempt the well nigh impossible and advise you on what wine goes with which cheese. The practical answer often is that you are simply tempted to have cheese to enable you to finish the wine that remains after the conclusion of the main course. Their advice, though, is good. They admit that there “are no hard and fast rules”, and suggest trial and experimentation.
Cheese has been made for the last five thousand years at least. Certainly there appears to be evidence of cheesemaking equipment in Europe and Egypt for that period. And Homer (9th or 8th century B.C.) in the Odyssey gives an excellent description of cheesemaking from goat’s and ewe’s milk and storage of the product in baskets in caves. Was it by any chance a blue cheese? Virgil in 52 BC also writes about cheese.
Our Japanese authors reflect on the origin of the “Holy Trinity” of wine, cheese and bread, and suggest that the fifteenth century monk and writer Rabelais may have coined the phrase. I find that his Holy Trinity is much easier to understand than the ecclesiastical one. Cheese, bread and wine — beautiful. I must ask my heart man if the Trinity raises or lowers cholesterol. In this respect I note with pleasure that the very delicious Italian cheeses, Parmesan, Parmigiano Reggiano and Grana are made from “partially skimmed” milk. Away with thee, cholesterol.
CHAPTER SEVEN
It was hard to leave the Vallee de la Maronne, but we were consoled by the thought of the D roads ahead, the forests and the villages set so unobtrusively (except for super and hypermarches) in the rolling countryside.
So it was off. On to the D922, across the river and up the hill, foot hard down on the superb little diesel.
Morning tea was in a forest where wild flowers bloomed abundantly in the grass. There were gentians, of course, wild orchids which remind me of hyacinths, nigella (which I love dearly, but because of my mother, not, I hasten to assure you, because of the English cook), foxglove, buttercups, forget-me-nots, violets, geraniums — very small and quite delicate, scarlet poppies, marguerites, naturally, and…and all sorts that I didn’t recognise.
The trees that provided an almost solid background were oak, birch and linden. I can’t recall on previous trips seeing so many linden trees nor do I recall their dense foliage or their size. The first of these trees that I ever remember recognizing was in the south-eastern corner of the Flagstaff Gardens in Melbourne. And the first birches I remember seeing were in a delightful coloured glossy brochure advertising the glories of a Renault Dauphine. Unfortunately I was only an articled clerk at the time and people of that income could aspire to Dauphines but they could not actually buy them. Tolstoy describes a birch forest in War and Peace and his description is quite wonderful. The birch trees of Melbourne are all dying but there is a splendid Australian “birch” which we hope to meet on the Darling. It is known as the leopardwood tree.
We guiltily ate our pain chocolat in the weak spring sun, had a mandatory slurp of bottled water and then resumed our journey. The taste of that pastry and chocolate (pinched from the breakfast basket) remained with me for many kilometres. It is true — stolen fruit and pastry, like stolen kisses, are best.
The outskirts at Argentat presented themselves at 11.45 — the bewitching hour. I stopped outside a boulangerie not far from the Dordogne. We took our demi-baguette with us towards the bridge, but then I turned and made my way back to the boulangerie for I couldn’t free myself of the aroma of quiche lorraine. I bought two small ones. All this patisserie in one day, but the appetite for pastry is infinite. At least I believe that it is.
Argentat when approached from this direction is dramatic. The river was high, almost in flood and it lapped some wonderful medieval houses overhanging its banks. There were turrets and balconies and verandahs and in the background on your left there was a massive church tower and on your right two elegant church spires. On the opposite bank and upstream along a small beach were cafés, bars and restaurants. Argentat is famous for its old quarter and for its Tours de Merle a short distance out of the town and in the valley of the Maronne. It also attains some fame in my memory for the tall and lean and extravagantly moustachioed waiter who was delighted to show us to a riverside table under an umbrella and to bring us two coffees, seulement, despite the fact that it was still lunchtime and he was busy. I left him a tip of two euros, the least I could do, and he smiled and bowed and said “arrivederci” as if we had given him a fortune. Bloody flattering Italiani!
The Lords of Merle built the original castle in the eleventh century on a spur overlooking a bend in the river. Sons and descendants of the original Merle built their own towers. The castle and most of the towers are now in ruins but those very ruins evoke the Middle Ages and the so-called Hundred Years War. It was easy to find a pleasant spot for our late lunch and a look at the map for a leisurely journey downstream on the little roads that sneak along the left bank of the Dordogne.
Walnuts and the Dordogne — it’s like saying bread and cheese or meat and potatoes: they are the perfect companions. The walnut, I’m informed, is a “native to south-eastern Europe, Central Asia, America and China.” It was introduced to France by the Romans, it seems, and how comfortable it has made itself in France, especially in the Valley of the Dordogne. You’d swear it was native to the area, it is so well adapted there. Of course, it is the soft-shelled variety, which I imagine had its origin in Persia, now part of Iran.
Whenever you come across a relatively small plot of land with rich soil you will see walnut trees, and the trees always look
