Day 2760 (Saturday) 28th December 2024

Huw had to go and clean the pool this morning and called in at the market on the way home. 

The poulet roti man wasn’t in the market but Huw bought some lovely cheese called Brebis Basque  

All about Brebis

Brebis photo credit Green Dirt Farm

You’ve heard of chevre, the ubiquitous fresh goat’s milk cheese that graces supermarket cheese displays, fast-casual salads, and high-end cheese boards. And maybe you’ve tried fromage blanc, made with cow’s milk, spread on a hunk of baguette or swooped onto your morning toast. There’s another luscious, lactic cheese you should know: Brebis (pronounced “breh-bee”), the fresh sheep’s milk cousin of these two more common cheeses.

In France, “brebis”—which comes from the French for “ewe”—functions the way “chevre” does. The word refers to sheep’s milk cheese of any age. The same way “chevre” can mean a fresh, spreadable lactic cheese made from goat’s milk or a wrinkle-rinded crottin, brebis can be used to describe any sheep’s milk cheese produced in the French or Basque manner. The term is often used for French sheep cheeses, particularly those produced in the Pyrenees, the mountainous region dividing Spain and France that’s also home to the Basque people. Aged mountain cheeses made from sheep’s milk like Ossau-Iraty (full AOC name: Ossau-Iraty-Brebis-Pyrenees) fall under the category of brebis. Rich, pungent Roquefort—the iconic French blue cheese—is also a brebis, although the term is typically limited to wheels made in the hard-aged mountain style. In the United States, though, the term brebis is often used to refer to a fresh, lactic cheese made from ewe’s milk—the sheep equivalent of fresh chevre or fromage blanc.

Like its soft, spreadable goat and cow’s milk cousins, brebis is a lactic or acid-set cheese. The milk (whatever animal it comes from) is coagulated primarily from cultures producing lactic acid. The acid causes proteins in milk to form into curd over a much longer timespan (think 16 to 24 hours versus just 30 minutes for rennet-set cheeses). This creates a bright, acidic flavour and a softer, weaker structure in the finished product. After forming the curd, a fresh, high-moisture cheese like brebis would then be drained in cloth bags before being packaged.

Brebis photo credit Green Dirt Farm

So what’s the difference between these three fresh cheeses if they’re all soft, spreadable, and aged for just a few days? Although each one has the characteristic tang of a fresh lactic cheese, chevre tends towards more citrusy notes and a drier texture. Fromage blanc, made with cow’s milk, tends to have a milder flavour and richer texture than chevre. But brebis is even more luscious, soft, and supple. Why? Because sheep’s milk contains twice as much fat and 70 percent more protein than the others. Since cheesemaking is essentially the art of capturing as much of these solids as possible, you need only half as much sheep’s milk to make a pound of cheese as you do cow’s or goat’s milk. And because fresh cheeses are so dependent on the quality of the milk they’re made from—without secondary cultures, aging time, or affinage techniques to bring out more complex flavours—brebis is the richest of them all, with a subtly earthy flavour beneath the brightness of its lactic acid cultures. 

Sadly, brebis is much less common in the US

 than chevre or fromage blanc—and it’s no wonder, considering that there are only a few hundred sheep dairies in the U.S. out of around 60,000 dairy farms counted by USDA, the vast majority of which milk cows. There are reasons for this: Despite their high-yielding milk, sheep produce just a tenth of the volume of milk that cows do. They’re also very susceptible to health issues like parasites, diseases, and predators, which makes the animals riskier for dairy farmers to raise. Plus, outdated restrictions around importing sheep during the mad cow disease panic in the late ’90s have made it nearly impossible to import better-quality breeding stock for dairy sheep from Europe or Canada. 

He took some lovely photos on the way home – this is the citadel 

We’d arranged to meet in Lou Bantry on the seafront for a coffee and he took this great photo of the fishermen and a seagull waiting for its lunch.

These condiments were on the table and when we got home I looked up Nicolas Alziari. I’ve done this before because we have some lovely pots and have been to the mill in Nice.

150 years history

 

 

 

An eternal tree for an endless story 

An eternal symbol of life, olive tree inspires our philosophy.

 

1868 : Son of a family of laundry workers, César Martin decides to start his business in manufacturing olive oil. He will buy an old mill in ruins in the Madelaine area in Nice. Soon, he will be very successful.

 

1900 : Aware that, to stand out from its numerous competitors, Nicolas Alziari had to provide carefully elaborated olive oils for his prestigious clients. Having the idea of applying techniques used in the world of wine, champagne, coffee or chocolate, he travelled across Europe to find rare varieties of olives, matching perfectly to the French Riviera local variety (Cailletier). It took many years and an unique know-how to create extraordinary assemblies that make the todays reputation of the house.

 

1920 :  Nicolas and Jeanne, his spouse, decide to open a store, Gubernatis street, in the centre of Nice. Nicolas takes over olive oil supply.

 

1936 : Building on the success of the first store, Pauline, Jeanne and Nicolas' daughter decide to open another shop in the street "St Francois de Paule" in Nice to get close to the flower market (le cours Saleya). That one will become the emblematic address of the house. 

 

1955 :  After Nicolas Alziari’s death, his spouse who was in charge of the mill. This strong lady has already reintroduced the mill during the First World War whereas Nicolas was on the front lines. His son, Ludovic, took care the commercial part.

 

1970 : Olive oil retail directly in store. This is Jean Nègre, the son of Pauline Alziari and Jules Nègre who will take up the management of the store in the old city of Nice. The two family branches still share the production (Alziari family) and olive oil retail (Nègre family).

 

1980 : This is actually Jean Nègre and his spouse named Andrée who are going to developp the sells by suggesting not only olive oil retail but also a wealth of Nicolas Alziari 's groceries products branded. 

 

1991: Gulf War breaks up and threaten France. Ludovic Alziari, who had already passed retirement, found no successors in his family, and so decide to sell his mill. Jean Nègre, close to retirement, also decide to take is retirement. This is Gilles Piot, the brother of Jean's son-in-law, who will take back the two establishments.

 

2005 : Launch of a mill restoration plan and estate expansion. Since that date, the master word is excellence. We sign recipes for more than 130 products. Olive oil selection has gone from 3 to 10 to satisfy the most demanding. 

 

The house transmits its knowledge and make known the extreme delicacy of its olive oil beyond its borders in the most prestigious delicatessens of the world, becoming one of the reference in terme of  olive oil Grands Crus. 

2013 : Nicolas Alziari's house develop new manufacturing methods and realise original vintages.

This was Badger this morning when I was trying to make the bed – he stayed there for hours.