For the love of curds

Every month, Isabelle Fouard, Fair Food’s marketing manager and passionate cheese advocate shares her love of curds by showcasing a local artisan cheesemaker.

This month Isabelle is featuring Matthieu Mégard owner of L’Artisan Cheese in Mortlake (that’s Matthieu with the cheese).

A third generation French cheesemaker, Matthieu spent ten years learning how to make traditional Alpine cheeses like Gruyère, Raclette, Comté and Morbier from his father and grandfather.

And while he skimmed and moulded Matthieu dreamed of starting his own factory.

When Matthieu moved to Australia in 2009 he arrived just as Herman Schulz (Simon’s grandfather from Schulz’s Milk) was closing his Timboon Cheese Factory.

Matthieu bought the factory and in 2010 L’ Artisan Cheese was born.

L’Artisan’s milk comes from an organic Jersey herd owned by the Smith Family in Mepunga near the Great Ocean Road.

Farmer John Smith’s milk has a high calcium content which enables Matthieu to make his traditional semi-hard and hard cooked cheeses

Everything is done by hand and every cheese receives special attention.

The famous meltability of Alpine cheeses (think fondue) is due to the curds being cooked before they’re pressed into molds.

The cooking is what gives Alpine cheeses their pliability and stretchiness when they’re heated.

Isabelle tortured herself deciding what L’Artisan cheeses to feature – leaving out the Raclette with all its childhood memories of Raclette grill parties was almost more than she could bear.  

However, we do have a wonderful sample of L’Artisan’s finest which we hope you’ll enjoy…

Petit Fleuri Brie – a double brie-style cheese with a rich yellow interior that develops a soft, sticky, buttery texture as it ripens and a mild, creamy flavour with notes of mushroom and delicate hints of garlic chives.

Marcel – wrinkly, white, deviant. The wild child of the L’Artisan family. Beyond his oddly intense character, he can be so soft and pleasant that everyone loves him.

Mountain Man  a subtle Washed Rind. This complex yet smooth cheese is made in true Reblochon style. A must-have on any cheese platter or if you are making your own tartiflette, a rustic warming potato dish from the French Alps.

You can hear Matthieu talking tartiflette in this short SBS interview, which also has the recipe, (warning the accents in this recording are beyond awesome).

Can fizz be fairer?

We’re always asking the question can food be fairer?  

We love the idea of refillable soda bottles but we don’t love having to pay around $20 for a gas refill.

That’s why we started Fair Fizz a couple of weeks ago. 

Already over 100 customers have swapped over to Fair Fizz and at $10 a refill Fair Fizz is a much fairer price than your regular cylinder swap.

So if you have a Sodastream* or similar bubble facilitating machine and you’re bummed by the high price of gas refills then give Fair Fizz a go.

This is how it works:

–        the first thing to do is swap over your existing empty SodaStream or other brand of cylinder with a Fair Fizz Trade-In.  

Remember to leave your empty cylinder out for your driver to collect and we’ll swap it for a Fair Fizz cylinder.

–     Once you have your Fair Fizz cylinder all you have to do to get a refill is order a Fair Fizz Refill – they’re just $10.

On delivery day leave your empty Fair Fizz cylinder out for your driver and we’ll swap it for a full one.

–      And if you just need a new or a spare ready-filled Fair Fizz cylinder, simply add a New Fair Fizz cylinder to your Fair Food order and we’ll drop it off.

Find out all there is to know about Fair Fizz here

Have a great week

Chris

*Fair Fizz cylinders are compatible with all soda makers, excluding the new Sodastream Quick Connect machines