Les Filles go online – Télé Gourmet by Maître Philippe & Filles. The bigger, the bigger. Degrees of maturity of cheese.

Cheese is a natural product that is subject to certain fluctuations. For example, cheese changes over time – this is called aging. This short film is about how it changes and which cheeses are good to mature and which ones are not.

Have fun!

And here are the facts at a glance:

• In general, the less water a cheese contains and the more compact it is, the more intense its flavor. It follows that cheeses that lose water during maturing taste more intense than young cheeses.
• Unashed goat's cheese ripens well. They will then become drier and more compact and possibly harmless blue mold has formed on the bark. If you don't like that, you can carefully remove the mold with a brush.
• Ashed goat cheese does not mature as well. They have a tendency to get a bit bitter with age.
• Cheese always matures from the outside in. You can see that with cheeses like Camembert and Epoisses. When they are young, both have a solid core inside - the so-called "coeur" (French for heart). When well ripened, they are creamy to the core. Feel free to try out what you like better!
• With Camembert and other blue-veined cheeses, reddish-brown spots and discolorations can form on the white mold as they ripen. This is absolutely harmless and not a sign of spoilage.
• Brin d'Amour, coated in herbs, is very soft, moist, quarky and creamy when young. Later it becomes drier and firmer and of course more intense and a wild hairy layer of mold develops on the herbs. This particular mold is called "poil de chat" (cat hair) in French. It is also harmless and forms the bark together with the herbs. Anyone who feels visually disturbed by this can brush off the mold with a vegetable brush. You should be very careful not to remove all the delicious herbs at the same time. It is better to stroke the cat or press the fine hairs. Then it doesn't look so wild anymore.
• Blue cheeses like Roquefort are not meant to be aged, you'd rather enjoy them young.
• Hard cheeses such as Comté come onto the market already well matured. Our Comté always has at least 15 to 18 months. This cheese should therefore not be allowed to mature further at home, but rather eaten quickly, otherwise the cut surfaces will dry out. Should it ever become dry in the fridge, it can be used wonderfully as grating cheese.