http://www.papastronsay.com/cheese.htm

(Damn you Bruce >!! I've spent the
better part of an hour looking over that site!!)


While cheese was known in Roman times, still it was our spiritual
ancestors, the Catholic monks of the Middle Ages who played a primordial
role in the innovation and development of cheese. To them we owe many of
the classic varieties of cheese marketed today. Through the monks
cheesemaking became a truly established process. Today only a
comparatively small number of monasteries still produce their own cheese
(such as the French Trappist monasteries of Tamié, Bellocq, Citeaux,
Mont des Cat, and a few others).

The following cheese-board will give you to sample just some of the many
Catholic cheeses developed over the centuries by our monasteries:

One evening of the autumn of 774 AD the Blessed Emperor Charlemagne
(774-810 AD) was passing through Roquefort, in France while returning
from Spain. He asked hospitality in a monastery of the region.
Unfortunately it was a day of abstinence and the Abbot had nothing to
offer the Emperor but cheese from the monastery’s sheep. While the
Emperor showed his gratitude for the food he took great care to extract
with his knife the blue mould from the cheese. Seeing this the Abbot
remarked: “Sire, you are taking away the best part of the cheese.” The
Emperor trusting his judgment ate the cheese and said, “My Lord Abbot,
it’s delicious!” Before leaving the next day he asked that every
Christmas the monastery would send two mules laden with Roquefort cheese
to his capital of Aix-la-Chapelle. The monks had done it again!

During the time of the same Blessed Emperor Charlemagne, the
Benedictine monks of “Monasterium Confluentes” in the valley of the
Munster invented the Munster Cheese (Munster meaning Monastery) to
conserve milk and nourish the numerous population which lived about the
monastery gate.

The cheese Pont-l’Eveque goes back in time to the 12th Century and
was created by the Cistercian monks installed in the West of Caen,
Normandy, France.

English Wensleydale cheese owes its existence to the Cistercian
monks of Jervaulx abbey who brought their cheesemaking talents with them
from France in 1169. They produced their cheese until their monastery
was destroyed at the protestant Reformation. The monks passed on their
particular cheesemaking recipes and process to the local inhabitants of
Lower Wensleydale.

1140 AD the monks of the Abbey of Bellelay, Jura, Switzerland laid
their foundation stone and soon after produced the famous hard cheese
known as “La Tete du Moine” (Monk’s Head). The name was first given in
1192 and as a formulated cheese name (cf. Munster which is simply
“Monastery Cheese”), this is the oldest cheese name in Europe.

The Maroilles cheese produced in the Abbey close to Maroilles,
France. This abbey first produced a cheese in 960 AD and then went on to
develop the cheese called Maroilles which was the favourite cheese of
Emperor Charles V, and Philip II of Spain his son. This cheese which is
still in existence was made by the monks of the Abbey as early as the
11th and 12th century. In 1174 AD a law was passed advising all the
farmers of the Maroilles district that, after the feast of St John the
Baptist (24 June, midsummer), in preparation for the winter, they were
to keep all their milk production for the cheesemaking carried out for
the region by the monks.

Cheddar cheese: Certainly cheesemaking was well established in
Cheddar from a very early age. The village of Cheddar had an important
minster (monastery) from before the Norman Conquest. Cheddar savoir-
faire was in the hands of the monks of Cheddar who in England (as in the
rest of Europe) were developing and perfecting the great cheesemaking
art and science. King Henry II declared Cheddar cheese to be the best in
Britain, and the Great Roll of the Pipe (the King’s accounts) records
that in 1170 the King purchased 10,240 lbs of Cheddar cheese at a cost
of a farthing per pound. Cheddar cheese was so liked that the King’s
son, the famous Prince John, purchased a similar amount in 1184.

The Italian Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese was first produced by the
Benedictine monks of the 12th century in their monastery in the valley
of the river Enza in the region of Bologne. There are many written
documents of the 12th and 13th centuries which attest that the cheese
had already been perfected in that period and since that time its has
remained unchanged to this day.

The blue cheese of Haut Jura in France called the Bleu de Gex goes
back to the monks of the 13th century in the alpine Abbey of St Claude
where their method of production was a closely guarded secret..

In the 16th century the Praemonstratensian monks of the Abbey of
Bellelay produced the Bellelay cheese. The first mention of it in a
document is in 1570 in a letter from the Abbot to the Prince-Bishop of
Ble.

Camembert Cheese owes its origin to Abbot Charles-Jean Bonvoust.
During the French Revolution (1789) when all Catholic priests in France
were forced to choose between betrayal of the Faith, execution or exile,
some chose to hide themselves in the country to await better days.
During October 1790, the Abbot was received into the house of Madame
Marie Harel on her farm called Beaumoncel near the village of Camembert.
In return for the refuge which she accorded him, he shared with her the
secret of making the cheese which we know as Camembert.

The Colombier des Aillons was the cheese of the Carthusians of the
Charterhouse of Savoy.

Port du Salut cheese first produced in 1816 was the work of the
Trappist monks of the Abbey of Our Lady of Port-du-Salut at Entrammes,
France.

Chimay cheese. In countryside covered with forests, pastures and
crossed by many rivers, since 1876, the Trappist monks of Our Lady of
Scourmont, near Chimay, have produced a unique cheese with the good milk
of their farm; it continues today with modernised production equipment.

--
Peter Lucas
Brisbane
Australia

'Enjoy today, it was paid for by a veteran'

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