Mothais sur feuille

Appearance & taste

Mothais sur feuille is a flat, sometimes slightly truncated-cone-shaped cylinder with slightly rounded edges and, after the minimum ripening period, weighs at least 180 g; the leaf does not count. A chestnut leaf sticks to its underside. The rind is creased and wrinkled, white to ivory-coloured and only very slightly developed where the leaf lies. During ripening, blue, grey-blue, white or red spots of mould can form naturally.

The paste is white to ivory-coloured, soft, creamy, melting and very finely textured. The cheese smells and tastes of milk and yeast, with animal notes. After several weeks of ripening, notes of undergrowth, fresh straw, mushrooms and hazelnut may be added.

Production

The goats belong to the Alpine, Saanen and Poitevine breeds or their crosses. At least 85 % of the feed (as dry matter) comes from the area, and the green fodder entirely; only certain protein feeds such as oilcake or dried lucerne may be bought in, because there are no drying plants in the area. Each goat receives at least 200 kg of lucerne or other legumes from the area a year. Silage and baled silage are prohibited, and the seed for the feed is not genetically modified.

Fresh raw milk is used. Without being cut first, the curd is ladled into the moulds by hand and drains slowly. According to the specification, this encourages the milk mould Geotrichum, which makes the paste creamy and melting and brings out aromas of milk and yeast after only 12 days. The cheese ripens on leaves of young chestnut trees from the area, which are picked directly from the tree without touching the ground and dried on wire so that they stay brown and clean. The leaf regulates the moisture of the cheese during ripening. Milk production, cheesemaking and ripening take place in the area.

Origin & history

The area is southern Poitou, a transition zone between the limestone plain of Poitou and the hedged landscape of the Vendée, with its core in the south of the department of Deux-Sèvres around Niort, Melle and La Mothe-Saint-Héray. On the Jurassic limestone lie shallow, stony soils, the “terres de groies”, and between them red loam soils, the “terres rouges à châtaignier”, on which chestnut trees grow. The climate is oceanic and mild, often dry in summer. The limestone soils are suitable for legumes and cereals, so the farms produce the feed for their goats themselves.

According to the specification, the trade in goat’s cheese grew between the 11th and 15th centuries with the pilgrims on the Way of St James. Later the many Protestants in the Mellois promoted goat keeping and the planting of chestnut trees against famine. Potters in about 15 places made cheese moulds from clay; today they are made of plastic but have kept the old shape. After the phylloxera crisis at the end of the 19th century, many winegrowers switched to goats, and markets and cooperatives sprang up around La Mothe-Saint-Héray. The region is the home of the Poitevine goat, whose numbers fell in the 1920s because of foot-and-mouth disease.

At local markets the cheese was called “sur feuille” (“on a leaf”), in distant cities “Mothais” or “fromage de la Mothe”; the railway brought it to Niort, Poitiers, Bordeaux and Paris. In 1953 Curnonsky mentions the goat’s cheese on a leaf from the area around La Mothe-Saint-Héray and Melle in “Fromages de France”, and in 1972 Pierre Androuet mentions the “Mothais” in his “Guide du fromage”. At the end of the 1980s the producers began to use the name “Mothais sur feuille”.