Cheese

On my first visit to the Auvergne I was woken, in my hotel room, by a gentle clunking of cowbells filtering through the window. I looked out along the steep east-west valley in which the hotel was located. There, in fields dotted with trees whose early morning shadows pointed pleasingly in the opposite direction from those cast by the previous evening’s setting sun, ambled a herd of Salers cows. I was immediately struck by the beauty of the animals, with their slightly curly chestnut coats, light build, broad faces and slender, elegantly curved horns, some lyre-shaped, others pointing forwards like those of Spanish fighting bulls. I did not realize at the time that, quite apart from their unusual appearance, these were cows extraordinary, totally different in their behaviour, character and milk-producing quality from such hobbling milk factories as Friesians. Those very characteristics are partly responsible both for the very high standard of Auvergne cheeses and for some of the problems encountered by the industry.