Sheep and Goat’s Milk Cheese

There are so many sheep and goats’ cheeses to choose from, fresh or aged, dozens and dozens of shapes and different sizes, from a soft fresh lemon-shaped one to a large curdy cone, a linen-white basket shape, a disc with ferns, one with pink peppercorns, ash, wrinkled skin, smooth skin, a covering of vine leaves, black pepper, chives, to a tiny, hard little disc called bouton de pantalon.

They are eaten at every occasion; if not as part of a cheeseboard, then served with honey and walnuts, or melted under the grill and put on top of a salad. They are nearly all delicious – although you may not yet have developed a taste for the cheese rubbed with marc and preserved in oil. But here are a few that are due a special mention.