It’s 7am on Sunday and the awakening of Swiss farmer Colin Rayroud wasn’t just kind. At sunset I got out of my bunk in the haystack to milk the cow. Now, I vacant the buckets into a steaming tub in a dimly lit wooden-paneled kitchen area, emotion like I have stepped into a medieval sauna, a person with an extraordinary milky scent. As a result of the steam, I admire the vibrant and sparkling 640-liter copper pot hanging above the open up wooden hearth, with milk gushing into it. “He’s at least 40,” suggests Colin. “My father and grandfather utilised it. I realized almost everything I know about L’Etivaz cheese from them. “
Hazelnut cheese from the community cooperative
My landlord has been producing this hard cheese below in the municipality of Rougemont in the canton of Vaud since 2005. The season is small: it lasts as extended as the cows graze on the mountain pastures. Colin started his profession as a carpenter, touring the environment and expending time in places like Quebec, New York and Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, property to the oldest and biggest Amish group in the United States. Inspired by the peasant tradition encountered for the duration of his travels, he returns to Vaud and devotes himself to cheese.
It is a single of all over 70 L’Etivaz producers issue to strict product rules. To be categorized as Protég Designation of Origin (AOP), shielded designation of origin, the cheese must be developed among May possibly and Oct. It has a nutty flavor, comparable to Gruyère, and is produced from unpasteurized milk that is heated above a wood hearth. Immediately after manufacturing, the area cooperative, which has existed considering that 1935, shops and sells it.
Colin and his assistant Alessandra Lapadula are at present in the intense output period. They alternate concerning the two Colin shelters so that the cows constantly have contemporary pastures to graze, and comply with a rigorous day-to-day plan: milking, building cheese, taking the cows to pasture and bringing them back in the night. As the milk cools, incorporate the rennet and whey from the working day prior to and the combination bit by bit begins to individual: curdled milk grains as large as couscous are shaped. Colin offers me a handful of chewy bits to try. They press towards my tooth with a snap, with no hint of the flavor of the 12 months-previous final merchandise.
As the working day attracts to a close, we beef up with raclette, which we heat on a stone by the fireplace, alongside with Colin’s pickled chanterelles. Following supper he will take his accordion and begins enjoying. He knocks on the concrete flooring with neon yellow Crocs. I inquire him what he does to pass the time up below on the mountain. “When I wake up, I really don’t have to transform on the Tv set,” he jokes. “I just open the window and consider a look at the check out.” And indeed, there are lots of spectacular sights right here in Vaud, the mountainous canton north and east of Lake Geneva.
But culinary tradition is a worthy contender for awareness: Vaud is wealthy in gastronomic traditions, numerous of which date back again to ahead of the Romans roamed these lands. The canton has extra dining establishments featured in the Michelin and Gault Millau guides for Switzerland than any other in the place. Between the most effective are the three-star Cafe de Lodge de Ville in Crissier and the two-star Anne-Sophie Pic cafe at the BeauRivage Palace Lodge in Lausanne.
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