8th July 2010 – Curds and Whey and Spider Play

My second to last day at Fontchouette was a Thursday, and, as it was the beginning of the holiday season, it meant that it was the first day of a scheme called Jeudis à la Ferme. In this scheme six farms around Lamastre spent an afternoon with open doors. At Fontchouette, Anne-Marie would be offering an explanation of the wine cellar, and Pierre would give a tour of the cheese-making machinery. It was well advertised around Lamastre and it was free, although admittedly with a fair amount of pressure to buy some of the farm produce at the end of the visit. As it was the first week, Pierre didn’t anticipate a large influx of tourists, but nevertheless we were to spend the morning making sure the farm was both safe and presentable for the potential visitors.

Malo and Juan were less than impressed at being made to tidy up their wooden swords and shields and makeshift battlefield from around the cat food barrels. At breakfast Juan looked disgruntledly at his mother sitting next to me and made his point of view very clear: the WWOOFer can do it, that’s her job! His injury was winning him some sympathy from his parents, but not enough to excuse him that particular impertinence. One of the main reasons that Anne-Marie and Pierre had decided to take on WWOOFers many years previously was so that the boys could grow up with openness and respect for difference. I commended their attempts, but sometimes children would just be children.

This WWOOFer didn’t tidy up the boys’ toys, but I did spend an amusing hour with Malo and a very long broom, clearing the cellar of cobwebs and spiders. Malo was on spider-watch. Whenever he saw one lurking he would tell me, and I was to knock it down from its hiding place. Malo chased them around the cellar floor with a glass jar, proudly parading each one in front of me before setting them free outside. Some of them were enormous. I was glad that my proximity to the arachnids in my sleeping quarters had cured me of any phobia I might have been harbouring. In fact, I had grown rather fond of the one which lived on the window sill near my bed. He was tame, and a useful method of mosquito control.

As predicted, only one family visited that afternoon, but at the end of it all they dug deep into their pockets for luxury aged cheese and exotic-sounding wines. I took the opportunity to be given a cheese tour myself. Down in the cellar, separate from the room with the wines, was a cheese-making space. It contained an enormous copper cauldron and various pieces of heavy-looking metal equipment. The milk was heated in the cauldron, but only gently, before rennet was added. The rennet made the milk split into curds and whey. The heavy-looking machines were for cutting the curds into tiny pieces, which would then be heated further before being poured into moulds and pressed to get rid of the whey. Once the cheese was solid in its mould, the mould was opened. 

The finished cheeses were transferred to a tiny dark room in the heart of the cellar. In the damp, smelly, cold room were rows of shelves made from untreated wood, on which sat cheeses at every stage of maturity. Each cheese weighed 40 kilograms and had to be turned and polished regularly to cultivate the rind. Pierre usually made one cheese per week, although sometimes, like the fortnight when I was there, other elements of life took over and he didn’t make any. He sold his cheeses at market in slices, and each whole cheese was worth over 1000 euros. He always had two cheeses on sale at once. One had been maturing for a year and was smooth and creamy with a gentle, slightly nutty flavour. The other was two years old and was much more pungent, on the verge of being spicy. He also said that sometimes he made cow’s milk mozzarella. He described to me how he cut the curds into longer strips, somehow made them form into a loop, and then kneaded the mass as if it were bread dough. I couldn’t quite imagine it.  

After the visitors left, Pierre rolled up his sleeves. It was time for the cockerel to get its just deserts. The two boys ran after him, eager to witness the bloodshed. Anne-Marie and I weren’t so keen and chose to stay inside. Even so, we could still hear too much. After sounds of hysteria and fluttering feathers while the predator realised that its fate was as prey and tried to escape it, there was a silence while the boys held their breaths, as Pierre concentrated on the task – and neck – in hand, and the cockerel was being asphyxiated, then a crunch that sent shivers up my spine.  Malo came in crying. Despite living on a farm, this was his first experience of witnessing a death. 

It didn’t take Malo long to stop crying though. Pierre and Juan stayed outside to pluck the bird while Anne-Marie comforted him. Soon enough the other two came in and made their way over to the sink with the carcass. What followed was the most practical biology lesson I’ve ever experienced as the heart, the intestines, the lungs, the testicles, and all of the other important, slippery organs of the body were pulled out in Pierre´ blood-wet fingers and suspended over the washing up bowl. Explanations of the circulatory, digestive, respiratory and reproductive systems ensued in great detail and the boys stared entranced at their father and his handfuls of guts with eyes full of awe.