A Cheese Plate
That’s a Breakfast Favorite
Cheese with breakfast? How continental! This plate offers just the right selection of sweet, fruity and flavorful French cheeses to enjoy with your morning coffee.
Max’s recommended tasting order: Crottin frais, Fleur du Maquis, Mimolette, Ossau-Iraty.
The Cheeses
“Some put cream in their coffee, I have mine black with cheese. The good milky flavors of young, mild cheeses work best — and it’s very nutritional.”
Max McCalman, Maître Fromager
Crottin frais. A young goat’s milk cheese from the Périgord region east of Bordeaux. This natural rind cheese has a soft and creamy texture and a light nutty flavor.
If you can’t find it, ask for: Chabichou du Poitu, Boucantrin, Rove des Garrigues, Crottin Champignou, fresh or aged goat cheese
Mimolette—Nord-Pas de Calais. Produced in Flanders in the northernmost region of France, this pasteurized cow’s milk cheese is pressed, cooked and shaped like a cannonball. Mimolette hardens as it ages, its interior turning a deeper orange and acquiring a mouthwatering array of fruity, nutty flavors. Best when aged 18 months or more.
If you can’t find it, ask for: Aged Comté or Beaufort
Ossau-Iraty. (AOC) Farmhouse made and ripened in a Benedictine abbey in the Basque region of southwestern France. The recipe for this sheep’s milk cheese is 3,000 years old! It is semi-hard with a fairly dense, concentrated consistency and delicious sweet, fruit, nutty flavors.
If you can’t find it, ask for: Another sheep’s milk cheese made in the French Pyrénées
“This is one of my breakfast favorites. I have it with honey, fresh fruit and crusty bread — there’s hardly anything better!” Max McCalman, Maître Fromager
Fleur du Maquis—Corsica. An artisanal ewe’s milk cheese from the island of Corsica, whose name translates as “flower of the maquis,” the French term for the scrubby local terrain. Soft, mild and aromatic, with a dusting of bluish mold that is encrusted with rosemary or savory.
If you can’t find it, ask for: An herb-encrusted fresh cheese from Corsica or Provence, Tomme de Grand-Mère.
All soft-ripened cheeses used in our Signature Fromage Plates are made from pasteurized milk, and therefore comply with FDA regulations.