Day 83: La Tomme de Haute-Richelieu

This may sound childish, but the reason I decided to get this cheese was because I was recently watching Ratatouille, and at one point, after finding some leftover cheese, Remy (the main character) looks at his brother, Emile, and goes, "Do you know what this is? It's not just any cheese, it's La Tomme de Pays! Gusteau loves this stuff!"

I ended up getting another cheese, and before I go into what I actually got, what is La Tomme de Chevre de Pays and why was little Remy waxing philosophical about it? And why was it so hard for me to find it?

Tomme - Tomme-style cheeses are the ones with a grey-brown rind, making it look sort of 'rustic' or 'weathered' and I typically think of them having a soft and creamy texture - think brie or camembert. This is not the actual definition, but since I'm more layman than cheesemonger, let's just call this a working definition because it'll help you out 90% of the time.

Chevre - means Goat in French, so it's made of goat blood. Just kidding. It's made with goat milk (obviously).

De pays.- means "from country" in French. So typically, a tomme would use the region after its name (e.g. "Tomme de Savoie" or "Tomme de Beaujolais") and since 'Pays' translates to 'Country', Remy was looking for a Tomme cheese "from country", which as you can see, doesn't make sense and so that might also explain the weird looks like received when I was asking the cheesemongers if they had "Tomme de Chevre de Pays" because that doesn't exist!

I ended up getting something called "La Tomme de Richelieu". It's a tomme from Quebec and it had that  milky, farm, nutty flavour with a soft melt-in-your mouth texture. The rind was really sticky and strong smelling so that threw me off at first. Not sure if it was because I had it in my bag for awhile. The price came to $55/kg. (for perspective, cheddar cheese is typically something like $10/kg).

On La Tomme de Richelieu

Created 12 years ago by Fritz Kaiser, Le Tomme Haut Richelieu was an invention of necessity. The fromagerie had received more goat's milk than it needed to make its soft cheese Chevrochon. Wanting to preserve the milk by making a cheese that would have a longer shelf life, they made a goat's milk version of their semi-soft cow's milk cheese.

Day 82: Fiddleheads

If you've been in grocery stores this week, you may have noticed that fiddleheads are in season. For some reason, the grocer at St. Lawrence Market had them floating in water, which made it look fresher. The price was $6.99/lb.

You can blanch, steam, or stir fry them. Blanching and stir frying is nice, because it seals in the colour. But stir frying is more practical though. We put in some fried onions and garlic, and then a little bit of hot mustard (the mustard came from Caplansky Deli and that stuff is awesome). You can add lemon.

You may want to cook them for quite a while (over 10 minutes) for food safety reasons. Cleaning them is a bit of a hassle, because you need to remove these little brown stuff on the outside and you have to chop off the woody part of the stem.

We ate this quite a bit as a kid (apparently there's a town in NB that claims to be the fiddlehead capital of the world?). The flavour is like a subtle asparagus and the texture is curious -  fibrous and chewy. It's a nice treat in the middle of the week, but it is a bit of work to prepare, and the cooking time is relatively longer.

On Fiddleheads (from wikipedia): 

'Fiddleheads' or 'Fiddlehead greens' are the furled fronds of a young fern,harvested for use as a vegetable. Left on the plant, each fiddlehead would unroll into a new frond.

They have antioxidant activity, are a source of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, and are high in iron and fibre. It is also called a crozier, after the curved staff used by bishops, which has its origins in the shepherd's crook.

They  have been part of traditional diets in much of Northern France since the beginning of the Middle Ages, Asia (India, Korean, Chinese, Indonesia) as well as among Native Americans for centuries. They  are a traditional dish of northern New England (especially Maine) in the United States, and of Quebec, Ontario and the Maritimes in Canada.

Fiddleheads are available in the market for only a few weeks in springtime.