CHEESE
DELICIOUS DETOURS Warning: There are ‘sharp’ turns ahead with well-aged cheddar, chèvre and more waiting for a couple eating their way along Quebec’s Cheesemakers Circuit By Liz Fleming
M
y husband, Jamie, and I have never met a cheese we didn’t like, so we knew the Cheesemakers Circuit, an enticing listing of 16 cheesemakers and purveyors stretching through the beautiful backroads of Quebec’s Eastern Townships, was a must-do. For three gloriously self-indulgent days, we explored the route, with each stop providing a deliciously different spin on the ancient practice of cheesemaking. History tells us cheese was created by accident when one of our ancestors poured milk into a pouch made from an animal’s stomach – perhaps a bad storage choice, but it had an unexpectedly great outcome. The acids within it curdled the milk and created cheese. Luckily, the talented creators on the Cheesemakers Circuit have taken cheese a long way from those early curdling days. Family-owned fromageries are stretched along the Cheesemakers Circuit, including our first stop, Fromagerie La Station, run by the Bolduc brothers – Simon-Pierre, Vincent and Martin. One brother manages their happy cows, allowing some calves to remain with the milk-producing mothers and grazing the whole herd in grassy meadows on the theory that contented cows make sweeter milk. A second brother runs the modern facility where four styles of cheese – Chemin Hatley, Alfred Le Fermier, Comtomme and Raclette de Compton – are created with both raw and thermized organic milk (sanitized with low heat). The third brother manages the three wood lots where more than 5,000 maple trees are tapped to create sweetly sensational maple syrup. While at Fromagerie La Station, we nibbled on grilled cheese sandwiches in their cozy store/café. Oozing sharp cheddar and served with a jam for dipping (or spreading on the crispy crusts), it is a lunch to die for before we continue our exploration of all things fromage. At Domaine de Courval, Lucy Smith and Greg San Giuliani, two former urbanites turned makers of goat cheese, 5 6 | B O N V I VA N T 2 0 2 2
AS IT AGES, CHEESE DEVELOPS MORE COMPLEX FLAVOURS
run the quaintly quirky farm. “After years of living and working in Montreal, we wanted a change,” explains Smith. “When we saw a link on Facebook from a couple who wanted to sell their organic goat cheese business in the Eastern Townships, we called, met them, fell in love with the place and decided to buy it.” But did they know anything about farming, goats or cheesemaking? Nope. The terms of the sale included an invitation to live with the previous owners for a few months of hands-on farm training – something not usually included in your average house purchase. A few years down the line, the couple are as good at wrangling their ever-expanding goat herd as they are at rearing their small gang of adorable children – all the while
