BANON Aoc,a goat's cheese which brings back to me my childhood.

                          Few years after the WWII,I had a positive skin-test (TB primary infection) and the doctor said that I did not need any medicine but that I had to leave Lyon for the country during few months.As my grandmother and my aunt lived in a village of Provencale Drôme,I went there to breath the clean air from April to September.I went to the  village school with a single class during only three months because at this time the summer schoolholidays lasted three months.It was a remote village of 45 inhabitants without shop and bistro where people bred no cows but only goats because of the rocky lands and where cow's milk were unavailable.

                   As  my aunt bred goats,she made goat's cheeses wrapped in chestnut's leaves (like the Banon cheese ) which matured during months!I have still in my nose the terrible smell of these cheeses and the unpalatable (for me) taste of my breakfast mixed with chocolate powder,goat's milk and bread.

From that time I had never more eat goat cheese!

                         BANON Aoc cheese is an uncooked,unpressed, whole unpasteurised goat's milk  cheese produced in Provence in the south-east France(Alpes de Haute Provence,Hautes Alpes,Vaucluse,Drôme departments).Circular in shape,8 cm in diameter,it consists of a white soft paste of 40% fat content wrapped in chesnut leaves (the brown ones with a weaker tanin content) and tied with a wisp of natural raffia.

                         The pungent Banon  cheese needs at least 15 days of maturation to be savoured and is at its best from May to July.

It has a firm supple texture and would have a frutty and woody flavour.

            www.fromagerie-banon.fr informative site in English  

            www.village-banon.fr          and     www.banon6aoc.com