Tomme des Pyrénées

Appearance & taste

The cheese is a regular cylinder with two flat, parallel faces and rounded edges; its diameter is two to three times its height. It weighs 400 g to 5.5 kg. The rind is smooth, with some permitted irregularities, and orange, together with white, yellow or grey. Cheeses made from heat-treated milk weighing more than 1.5 kg may have a black or golden-brown coating. Per 100 g the cheese contains at least 53 g of dry matter and 24 g of fat.

The paste is uniformly white, ivory or yellow, soft, melting and creamy, usually with evenly distributed holes of irregular shape and size; it becomes firmer as it ripens. Depending on the ripening time, the milk and the care of the rind, the taste ranges from aromas of fresh whey, especially in coated cheese, to stronger aromas without excessive bitterness. The label states the type of milk or, for mixed milk, the types of milk in order of their proportion, as well as the treatment of the milk.

Production

Raw or heat-treated cow’s or goat’s milk or mixed milk is used: cow’s with 30 to 50 % sheep’s, cow’s with 30 to 50 % goat’s, or goat’s with 30 to 50 % sheep’s. Sheep’s milk is only permitted in mixtures and comes from the Basco-béarnaise, Castillonnaise, Manech tête noire or Manech tête rousse breeds. 70 % of the annual feed comes from the area; at least 25 % of the dry matter of the ration is grass from the area, and the animals are on pasture for at least 91 days a year.

The paste is not cooked. According to the specification, the renneting temperature, stirring of the curd, sufficient acidification and ripening without excessive protein breakdown shape the soft, creamy texture. The minimum ripening, counted from renneting, is 30 days for cheeses of 400 g to 1.5 kg made from goat’s milk, mixed milk or raw cow’s milk, and 40 days from mixed raw milk. Larger cheeses ripen for 21 days (cow’s milk, heat-treated, black coating), 45 days (cow’s milk, heat-treated, with rind or golden-brown coating), 60 days or, from mixed raw milk, 90 days. Milk production, cheesemaking and ripening take place in the area.

Origin & history

The area is the French side of the Pyrenees, with foothills and mountains, rounded and steep massifs and often deeply incised valleys that offer little wood. Rainfall ranges from 600 to 1,000 mm in the foothills to up to 2,500 mm on windy, snowy slopes and provides large areas of grassland. These are used by mixed farms with cows, sheep and goats, because sheep and goats can also reach areas that are inaccessible to cows.

Livestock farming and cheesemaking have been documented here since the 12th century. Because the relief separated the valleys from one another, the mountain people were largely self-sufficient, and in summer the shepherds made cheese that would keep, which was usually sold when the herds came down from the mountain pastures. According to the specification, because wood was scarce they did not cook the paste, unlike the keeping cheeses of the Alps or the Jura. In the 19th century production increasingly moved from the farm to craft businesses; in 1867 the first cooperatives (“fruitières”) were founded, later craft and industrial dairies. In areas without milk collection, cheesemaking on the farm survived.