Boulette d’Avesne

I don’t really hold with flavouring cheese with herbs, fruit, or anything else. But the Boulette d’Avesne from the north, near the Belgian border, remains my favourite cheese – not that much gets eaten these days. Made from the buttermilk from cows milk and mixed with tarragon, parsley, pepper and a tiny bit of cloves, it is then shaped by hand.It is left for two months or more, washed often with water, and eventually dusted with paprika. The taste is amazingly unified and inseparable. It looks like a small haystack at sunset. SC