Clearing the air around the world’s stinkiest cheese.
Would you eat a cheese made from raw milk? Would you eat a cheese made from raw milk that goes by the same name as one that killed two people? I did, and it was wonderful. In fact, so much so that the experience left me wondering how much we, as consumers, are missing, or indeed losing, out of fear. In the case of the rich and pungent Epoisses de Bourgogne, dubbed “The king of all cheeses” by cheesemongers and aficionados alike, its producers have been waging a marketing war with consumer apprehension for the past ten years that all started because of faulty cheeses that should never have been sold as Epoisses in the first place. Their armor in the battle, the French certification of origin, or A.O.C. and the more recently acquired P.D.O. label, its E.U. equivalent, may have been the only thing with the power to prevent the loss of a 600 year old traditional product.
In January of 1999, a cheesemaker who had not obtained the A.O.C. required to label his cheese as “Epoisses“ was, regardless, selling under the official name. Part of what this implied was that he was not being held to the same quality standards as the makers of the A.O.C. certified cheese, which eventually resulted in high levels of a bacteria called listeria in his cheeses. Like E. coli, listeria is present throughout nature, and we live in balance with it everyday. It is only when the concentration of the one harmful strain of the bug is too high that humans can contract listeriosis, a disease that starts with fever and digestive problems and, in its advanced stages, causes disruption of the nervous system and death. In the case of the would-be Epoisses, listeriosis proved fatal for three: two French citizens, an elderly woman and a young girl, and third, the reputation of the authentic product.
Sales plummeted as the media worked the public into a frenzy, with no care to properly explain the confusing details of the case. A 75% drop in sales in the year of the scandal proved that the press had failed to differentiate the imposter Epoisses from the protected cheese. Former consumers of Epoisses now either genuinely believed that their unctuous traditional product was responsible for homicide, or they were too afraid to take the risk. Despite a ruling against the offending cheesemaker, which included the confiscation of his property, it took five years, numerous press conferences, recovery loans from the French government, and a reworking of Epoisses’s public image to get sales back up to the same levels they were at in ’98. It’s amazing that, despite a reliable production process that goes back for centuries, something as intangible as fear had such an immediate, profound and prolonged effect on this physical product. In fact, if it weren’t for the existence of the A.O.C. and the P.D.O. certification mechanisms, the official Epoisses might not have had enough legal recourse to fight the imposter, and an ancient part of French cheesemaking culture may have proven to be economically unsustainable as a result of public reluctance to take risk. Thanks to this series of regulations, covering everything from ensuring the use of Simmenthal, Montbéliard and Brown cow breeds, to specifications about the cheese being washed in Marc de Bourgogne, a local distilled spirit, the Gaugry family, who invited my colleagues and me to their factory, is once again profiting from the production and sale of Epoisses. The presentation they show their visitors, however, served as a concrete reminder of how the cheese had to alter its pubic image to bring itself back from the brink.
Underneath the images of happy cows and workers washing the individual cheeses by hand, a preoccupation with safety and certification was immediately clear. After reviewing the “general points” of the cheesemaking process, all concerns shifted to convincing the consumer that their product is safe, with sections on “the quality issues, audits and controls, [and] the condition of farmers’ and cheesemakers’ professional qualifications”. Even though it was technically not Epoisses which causes the listeria scare in ’99, the themes of safety and control permeated every aspect of their explanation of the cheesemaking process. A factory producing one of the most renowned cheeses in the world should be focusing on the organoleptic merits and traditional processing of their product. Instead the scare had rearranged the priorities of the family-run business and hours were reallocated to reassuring an unjustly suspicious consumer. During the tour of the factory we clearly played that role as they informed my group that the workers must complete bacterial ecology training and are paid according to their results. As we stopped by the framed certificates from the International Organization for Standardization, or I.S.O., that declared the cheese factory to be the first in France to officially meet their safety standards, I had to wonder how all these regulations might be affecting the cheese. In fact, at the end of the day, taste had yet to be mentioned, and I was eager to experience the raw milk Epoisses that the Gaugrys are trying so hard to protect. After all, the family’s efforts in the safety sector have paid off in that they now turn out their raw milk variety in the hundreds of tons.
To aide in my discovery, Olivier Gaugry of the third generation of the family, conducted a blind tasting of three types of Epoisses: their own raw and pasteurized milk varieties and a second pasteurized one from another cheesemaker. I cut into the deep orange rinds of each cheese, eager to see if there was a detectable and desirable difference between the raw and pasteurized milk cheeses that would merit preservation and propagation in the face of fear. I raised a wedge of the first cheese to my unsuspecting nose. Known to be one of the most pungent cheeses in the world, the Epoisses did not disappoint. The creamy, ivory colored paste emitted an aura of hay, wildflowers and light animal aromas strong enough to envelop both me and everyone else within a ten-foot radius. In the mouth it delivered a tangy, salty punch which lingered as fruit and grass made themselves known in a notably homogeneous flavor. Where this first cheese had an intensity of taste, the second offered intensity of flavor. By far the most aromatic of the group, the second Epoisses was a mélange of pungent barnyard aromas, earthy humus and tropical plants on the nose. A bit apprehensive after the overwhelming aroma, I was shocked by the nuanced product that I placed in my mouth. Much less salty than the first, this wheel had a remarkable balance of flavor. With refreshing notes of churned butter and hay delivering a pleasant interpretation of the farm that was so forceful on the nose, the second wedge of Epoisses imparted its flavor and then dissipated, leaving the mouth clean and ready for the next bite. The third cheese seemed tame by comparison with notes of rendered butter and a little ammonia odor. Salt prevailed in the mouth like the first sample, all but overpowering the floral notes that tried to break through. Though all three displayed different characteristics, there was something similarly tame about the salty, more homogeneous taste of the first and third cheeses which pointed me to number two as the raw milk variety. Indeed I was correct. The most memorable and my preferred cheese was the second, the one made with raw milk, and I sat there thinking of all the consumers who had or would miss experiencing this or any traditional product out of fear.
The world’s growing obsession with hygiene, safety and conformity threatens to wipe out the variety of food experience that both stimulates and sustains us. Though problems arise when A.O.C. and P.D.O. labels develop standards for products that are by nature artisanal, they do have the power to relieve consumer anxiety and protect the reputation of traditional products. This type of declaration of origin in addition to a focus on safety, as demonstrated by the Gaugrys, are necessary to keep a variety of taste experience open to a modern consumer who is more aware of food scare and therefore unwilling to take risks. The Gaugry family did not win the battle against fear simply because they make an outstanding traditional product, but because they understand what the consumer really needs. As Olivier concisely put it: “people want taste and territory…and they don’t want to die when they eat”
