I continue my project of becoming familiar with the cheeses of France. At about two cheeses a week, this is a long-term project–there are so many cheeses in my favorite cheese guide, Guide de l’Amateur de Fromages, that I don’t have the patience to count them. Last night I went to a neighborhood fromagerie (cheese shop) and picked up half a wheel of livarot, a cow’s-milk cheese of Normandy. This is peak livarot season–who knew that cheeses had seasons? That’s part of every entry in my cheese guide, though–when the cheese is best enjoyed. I tried to buy a specific cheese the other day and was told to come back in November.
The French are heavily into classification–learning philosophy in high school, it’s not surprising that ontology is part of the culture. To talk about cheese, you need to have a good vocabulary of textures–that’s part of the description of every cheese. Here are some of the words that I’ve come across in this context. Note that these words are mostly applied to les pâtes molles (the softer cheeses)–for les pâtes presées, there’s a different set of terms:
Words describing pâtes molles à croûte lavée:
moelleux/moelleuse: soft, spongy, creamy, moist, gooey, smooth. Think of a brie (of which there are many). I also saw it on a bread ad today, presumably with the “soft, spongy” meaning.
onctueux/onctueuse: creamy, smooth. Think, again, of a brie. In literature: oily, greasy, unctuous. Yes, this is where we get our English word from. Sounds terrible if your native language is English, but I saw it on an ad for a coffee drink the other day.
crémeux/crémeuse: creamy. How many words you need for “creamy,” I don’t know–apparently, a lot, if you’re talking about cheese.
sec/sèche: dry.
fin/fine: not sure what this means in the context of the texture of cheese. Might be something like dainty, although that sense seems to be associated with things like handiwork. Might be thin, although that doesn’t seem to have anything to do with texture. Follow the link if you want to try to work this out yourself.
friable: crumbly.
tendre: soft, tender.
ferme: firm, solid.
I should point out that in the descriptions of the cheeses in my book, the adjectives always have the feminine form. This puzzles me, as cheese (fromage) is a masculine noun.
Zipf's Law 