Cheeses

Fine cheeses, eating well this month include Caerphilly, Sariette – a white, cow’s milk cheese covered with the herb savory – and smelly Epoisses from Burgundy with its shiny brick-coloured rind.

Notices will now be going up in cheese shop windows all over France, ‘Le Vâcherin est arrivé’. This Franco-Swiss queen of the winter cheeseboards, made with very rich milk, comes encircled by a strip of sappy wood in a box. The bottom of the cheese sticks to the box and the top rind is an undulating orangey mattress. All this makes for extreme difficulty when serving.