Picodon

Appearance & taste

Picodon is a small round disc 5 to 7 cm in diameter and 1.8 to 2.5 cm high; it weighs at least 60 g. The fine rind consists of pale yellow or white mould, sometimes with bluish spots. The cheese can be cut cleanly. Its paste is white or yellow, even and fine, and can become crumbly after longer ripening. The flavour is clean, neither too salty nor too sour.

The Picodon “affiné méthode Dieulefit” is somewhat smaller because of the washings: 4.5 to 6 cm in diameter, 1.3 to 2.5 cm high and at least 45 g in weight. Its surface is white, ivory, grey or light cream with some traces of colour. The cut surface looks marbled, and the paste is fine, regular and soft. The flavour is clean and slightly savoury, marked by capric acid.

The label gives the name in characters at least two thirds the size of the largest lettering, together with the producer’s name and address; cheese ripened for longer bears the words “affiné méthode Dieulefit”.

Production

The milk comes from goats of the Alpine and Saanen breeds, their crosses or animals of local origin. For every ten goats a farm has at least one hectare of land for pasture, fodder or cereals. At least 80 % of the basic ration is green fodder or cereals from the area; silage and other fermented feeds are prohibited all year round. Permanent housing is not allowed, and when the weather permits the animals have access to an outdoor run.

Whole goat’s milk is processed; on the farm it must be raw. Milk powder, condensed milk, milk proteins and ultrafiltration are prohibited. For coagulation, a lactic culture or whey and a little animal rennet are added at 20 to 25 °C; the milk coagulates slowly in 18 to 48 hours. Without prior draining, the curd is ladled by hand into individual moulds, turned at least once and salted on both sides with dry salt. After drying for at least 24 hours at no more than 23 °C, the cheese ripens for at least eight days at 12 to 18 °C and at least 80 % humidity.

For the Dieulefit method, the cheese first goes in containers into a humid room at 5 to 10 °C for at least 15 days, then ripens for more than eight days in a room saturated with humidity at 13 to 17 °C, is washed at least twice during this time and is finally dried naturally for at least 24 hours. Milk production, cheesemaking and ripening take place in the area.

Origin & history

Picodon comes from the hills that rise above the Rhône valley on both sides, a poor, dry mountain region in which, according to the specification, soil and climate allowed only goat farming. Drôme and Ardèche were long among the departments with the most goats in France. The name goes back to an Occitan expression for a small cheese with a savoury flavour. The word appears in writing in the 19th century, for example in 1863 in the “Glossaire du patois de Die” by Auguste Brossier. The train between Dieulefit and Montélimar was called “le Picodon” because the cheesemakers used it and left the smell of their cheese in it.

Because the goats give hardly any milk in autumn and winter, the surplus from spring and summer was preserved as cheese and eaten over the winter at different stages of ripeness. Surplus cheeses were wrapped in leaves and kept in a “bitcho”, a clay pot with two handles, washed every fortnight and wrapped again. The specification sees this as a variant of today’s Dieulefit method.