OK, I've decided it's time to kick it up a couple of notches and what better way to do it than by talking about -- and showing -- deliciously medieval French culinary traditions?
There are many examples of decidedly unsanitary but oh so terroir! gastronomic delicacies in this country and some of them are known throughout the world. This specialty is known by some Hungry Dimwits who received an email about it last year. I decided to share it with those of you who may not have seen it yet, and talk a little bit about how something like a cheese with spiders all around it can be possible.
According to the legend, these tiny spiders, a type of acarid ("artisou" or "artison" in French- where you can see the fine "powder") not only protected the cheese from drying out but it also helped it mature without going bad. The principle is simple: the little creatures eat their way into the cheese, forming a thick-ish crust which, after reaching a certain point, does not continue to grow into the cheese. The result, then, is a creamy but firm interior, with flavour that can range from the mild and somewhat fruity (the younger ones) to tangy and punchy and even kind of acidic at times.
Of course one is supposed to remove the crust before eating it, but there are people (ok, usually French) who will eat the crust, too, even while the spiders continue to move! Yes, because when you bring it home from the artisan cheesemaker wo/man-shop, they're still alive and moving. Exciting, non? Oh don't pull that face; if you eat oysters, this is easy.
After my initial shock (I was speechless for about 15 minutes, until someone filled my glass with wine) I tried a slice. Then another. We were drinking a cheap but good local red (Vin du Pays d'Allier- a sort of generic red from the Allier river region) and eating white crusty bread. The cheese was very good and I could not feel a single spider moving in my mouth (I had removed the crust - I wasn't brave or tipsy enough to go native, I'm afraid...) No but seriously, they're extremely small, though possibly a lot bigger than the ones that live in our pillows and mattresses.
I took this photo at the cheesemaker shop. The darker ones are older (and presumably positively teeming with artisons). Yum.
Free
ReplyDeleteI'm very brave. I'm not scared of spiders. I can eat this cheese. Plus, some strange scientist has worked out how many spiders we eat in our sleep in an average year. My theory is- if I've eaten a few artisou (artisoux? artisous?) then the ones I'm supposed to ingest in my slumbers won't come to me because I've already reached my quota.
Fact is too, I love cheese, this one tastes good, it's right out at the limits of legality (and you know how I like to challenge the limits of legality) and comes with bread and wine.
Here with a loaf of bread beneath the bough
A jug of wine, a few artisou and thou
And wilderness were paradise enow