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Cheese from France

Uncooked or semi-cooked pressed cheese family (tomme, Saint-Nectaire, Reblochon, Morbier, Raclette)tomme

Rennet sets cow milk, or in Tomme des Pyrénées also goat milk and a mix with sheep milk, into a curd. The curd is cut to small grains, heated only lightly or not at all, then pressed in moulds and salted. The wheels ripen in a cool, damp cellar, where a rind of moulds, yeasts and bacteria grows on the surface.

Fully documentedCheese16 days

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedThe family has no single recipe. The three French specifications used here (Saint-Nectaire, Cantal, Reblochon) set temperatures and times and give no fixed batch amounts.
MilkRaw or pasteurised. A cheese sold as raw-milk cheese is not heated above 40 °C.[cdc-sn2025]
RennetRennet only, in the Saint-Nectaire and Cantal specifications[cdc-sn2025][cdc-cantal2019]
SaltDry on the surface, rubbed through a milled curd, or as brine[cdc-sn2025][cdc-cantal2019][cdc-reb2020]
Lactic starter, calcium chloride and ripening culturesCultures of bacteria, yeasts and moulds and calcium chloride are the permitted additives in the Saint-Nectaire specification[cdc-sn2025]
Starterselected lactic and fungal cultures are allowed by the specifications; the rind flora develops during ripening

Total time across the recorded steps: 16 days

Start
Drag the bar or press Play
shapes, not to countMucor lanceolatusMoulds30–35 °CMilk proteinGel (curd)

What changes: Rennet sets the warm milk into a curd

Step 1 of 6
Warm the milk and add rennet
Time
10–45 min
Set
Temperature
30–35 °C
Set
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Mucor lanceolatus
Moulds
Yeasts

Output: coagulum.

Flavour
milky
Texture
gel
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

starter and milk flora acidify the milk

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Rennet sets cow milk, or in Tomme des Pyrénées also goat milk and a mix with sheep milk, into a curd. The curd is cut to small grains, heated only lightly or not at all, then pressed in moulds and salted. The wheels ripen in a cool, damp cellar, where a rind of moulds, yeasts and bacteria grows on the surface. Made in 6 steps over 16 days. The longest step, ripen in a cellar and tend the rind, takes at least 15 days (Ministère de l'agriculture 2020) and runs at 6–15 °C (Ministère de l'agriculture 2025). Mucor lanceolatus, a mould isolated from a Saint-Nectaire rind does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main stepat least 15 daysSet[cdc-reb2020][cdc-sn2025][cdc-cantal2019]Ripen in a cellar and tend the rind
Temperature6–15 °CSet[cdc-sn2025][cdc-cantal2019][cdc-reb2020]Ripen in a cellar and tend the rind
AciditypH 5–5.5Set[cdc-sn2025]Salt

What makes this one different

The curd is never cooked hard like a cooked pressed cheese (Comté, Gruyère). It is heated only lightly or not at all, to at most 35 °C in Reblochon, 40 °C in Tomme de Savoie and 45 °C in Morbier and Tomme des Pyrénées. The surface flora does a great part of the ripening.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Morbiera black line of vegetable charcoal runs through the paste; the specification says it first came from cauldron soot on the first curd, which was joined to the next making
  • Reblochonwashed rind; made from the milk of at most the two last milkings; small
  • Saint-Nectairenatural rind washed and turned in the cellar; labels such as "affiné sur paille" (ripened on straw) are allowed
  • Cantalintermediate stage: curd pressed, left to acidify as 'tome', milled, salted and repressed
  • Tomme de Savoieraw or thermised cow milk, a flat cylinder of 1.2 to 2 kg, or a small format of 400 to 900 g
  • Tomme des Pyrénéescow, goat or mixed milk; heat-treated tommes of over 1.5 kg and up to 5.5 kg may take a black or golden coating of paraffin or polyvinyl acetate

Made the uncooked or semi-cooked pressed cheese family way

Other uncooked or semi-cooked pressed cheese family kinds

Made the same way, each with what its own sources record.

Abbaye de Cîteaux (fromage de Cîteaux)

Cheese from France, Côte-d'Or

A Trappist farm cheese from the monks' own Montbéliarde herd; unlike most French farm cheeses it is made from thermised, not raw, milk.

Size
11 cm across, 2.5 cm high, about 720 g
Output
More than 400 tonnes of milk a year from 240 hectares, made into 70 tonnes of cheese

Sources: Wikipédia (fr)

Queso de Pría / Ahumado de PríaQueso de Pría

Cheese from Spain, Asturias

It is a cow cheese enriched with sheep cream, and it is best known smoked over oak and beech after ripening. It is sweet and low in salt.

Rind
Hard, smooth, brown
Size
Cylinders of 500–800 g (small) or 1.5–2 kg (large)
Fat
45 %

Sources: Vivir Asturias; Wikipedia (es)

Aschbacher Magerkäse (Formaggio Aschbach magro)Aschbacher Magerkäse

Cheese from Italy, Trentino-Alto Adige, province of Bolzano

It is made from milk half skimmed for butter-making, as South Tyrolean dairies have long done, so it is leaner than the full-fat Algund cheeses; it is ripened at least 30 days before eating.

Rind
Clean, smooth, light brown, no cracks
Size
Ø 25 cm, height about 8 cm, about 5 kg

Sources: ONAF (Organizzazione Nazionale Assaggiatori Formaggi); Ministero delle politiche agricole; ONAF

Bethmale

Cheese from France, Ariège, the Couserans in the Pyrenees, named after the Bethmale valley

The Ariège tourism board calls Bethmale one of the few cow's milk cheeses native to the Ariège Pyrenees. Its name stands both for the valley and for a plain shepherds' method with few technical means.

Milk
Mainly cow milk; sheep, goat or mixed versions exist

Sources: Ariège Pyrénées Tourisme

Brânză de coșuleț

Cheese from Romania, Transylvania

Sweet caș is salted, kneaded by hand and packed in fir-bark bellows, then very lightly smoked.

Sources: Wikipedia

Cornish Yarg

Cheese from England, Cornwall

Wrapped in frozen wild nettle leaves (or wild garlic leaves), which draw the natural moulds of the rind.

Milk
cow milk, pasteurised
Ripening
up to 5 weeksReported

Sources: The Cheese Atlas; Food Manufacture 2010

Formaggio della paglia (Lavizzara)formaggio della paglia

Cheese from Switzerland, Ticino

It is a soft alp cheese, unpressed and once ripened about a year and wrapped in rye straw so it could be carried by horse to Locarno and shipped on to Piedmont and Genoa. A tourist compared it to Gorgonzola stracchini and a 1908 valley guide ranked it with Limburger; Piedmont's tuma d'la paja is a soft cow cheese kept on straw mats.

Size
4–5 kg; about 25 cm diameter, 7–8 cm high
Season
Made at the start of the alp season and for Christmas; found only from August to October, at Fusio

Sources: Kulinarisches Erbe der Schweiz / Patrimoine culinaire suisse; Rennis P. 2024; ANSES 2022

Fourme de Rochefort-MontagneFourme de Rochefort

Cheese from France, Auvergne, Puy-de-Dôme

Like Cantal and Salers it is made from a milled and salted tome, but it is a much smaller cylinder of about 7 kg with no protected name, and it ripens only about 45–60 days.

Size
Cylinder about 7 kg, 29 cm diameter, 10 cm high
Output
About 100 tonnes a year through the La Fourmontoise cooperative (2013); about 120 tonnes a year in Wikipedia

Sources: Wikipédia (fr); L'Auvergne Agricole 2018; Bignon E. 2013; ANSES 2022

Gaztazarra (gazta zaharra)

Cheese from Spain, Basque Country and northern Navarre

Gaztazarra is not made from milk but from finished cheese, which ferments a second time in a pot. It is the Basque counterpart of the Catalan tupí, and like it keeps some old ferment as a mother for the next batch.

Milk
old S cheese (Latxa), optionally with Latxa milk, water or pacharán/aguardiente
Ripening
in a small clay pot, ≥2 moReported
Rind
none; soft, creamy spread
Size
pots of 100–250 g

Sources: Wikipedia (es)

Källarlagrad getost (cellar-ripened goat cheese)

Cheese from Sweden, Jämtland

It is ripened in an old earth cellar, so moulds of several colours, red among them, grow on the rind.

Milk
goat milk, raw (unpasteurised)
Ripening
in an earth cellar built in the mid-19th century; moulds of several colours, notably red, grow on the rind
Ripening time
Sigrid Kuusiniemi of the farm says it takes three to six months
Culture
Sigrid Kuusiniemi says she makes her own culture from milk warm from the goat and filmjölk (soured milk)

Sources: Nordstjernan; US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Mastelo (Chios)Μαστέλο

Cheese from Greece, North Aegean

Mastelo is a grilling cheese of Chios, used like halloumi. Its name is the Venetian word for a milk bucket.

Milk
Cow milk; goat-milk versions also exist
Type
Soft, white, chewy grilling cheese
Behaviour in storage
In a challenge test at 7 °C, Listeria monocytogenes survived on Mastelo but did not grow, which the authors put down to competing microbes and/or low pH or water activity

Sources: Kapetanakou A.E.; Facaros & Pauls Greek food decoder

Murol (Grand Murols)

Cheese from France, Auvergne

Murol is a Saint-Nectaire-type cheese with a 3 cm hole punched through the centre, so it is a ring. The plug becomes a second product, Murolait.

Milk
cow milk
Ripening
about 1 month, or 5–6 weeksReported
Size
about 450 g; 12 cm across, 3.5–4 cm high, 3 cm central hole

Sources: Wikipédia (fr)

Passendale

Cheese from Belgium, West Flanders

Passendale is shaped by hand like a round farmhouse loaf and made in linen cloths, which give it its round shape.

Milk
Pasteurised cow milk from local farms
Shape
Round, like a farmhouse loaf

Sources: Toerisme Zonnebeke; Wikipedia

Pustertaler Bergkäse (Formaggio di montagna della Val Pusteria)

Cheese from Italy, Trentino-Alto Adige, Prov. Bolzano

A Val Pusteria mountain cheese made in dairies from pasteurised milk, semi-cooked at 40 °C; the sheet likens it to Fontal and dates local dairy production to just after the Second World War.

Rind
Smooth, soft, elastic; straw, light brown or brown, with white moulds
Size
Ø 40 cm, height 10–11 cm, 10–14 kg
Fat
About 45 % fat in dry matter (full-fat) or about 35 % (semi-fat)

Sources: ONAF (Organizzazione Nazionale Assaggiatori Formaggi)

Queijo de Cabra das Beiras

Cheese from Portugal, Beiras

Small goat cheeses where the dried 'seco' is simply salted leftover fresh cheese.

Queijo de Cabra do AlgarveQueijo de cabra algarvio

Cheese from Portugal, Algarve

Made from the milk of the Algarvia goat, a regional breed, and made with a little cardo; in the record cheese one quarter was also flavoured with oregano.

Normal fresh cheese
Normal weight of 160/180 gramsReported

Sources: Município de Castro Marim 2016; Mendonça C. 2016

Queijo de Cabra do Guadiana

Cheese from Portugal, Baixo Alentejo along the lower Guadiana

The fresh cheese is made from boiled milk set with cardoon and eaten fresh; the dried seco is preserved under olive oil or salt rather than ripened in a cave.

Sources: US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Queso blanquet (queso de cabra de Alicante)

Cheese from Spain, Valencian Community

Sweetish low-salt goat disc with esparto-weave sides; sometimes kept in brine.

Rind
Barely any
Size
About 0.5 kg; about 15 cm disc

Sources: Wikipedia (es)

Queso de Burgos

Cheese from Spain, Castile and León

An unpressed, unripened fresh rennet cheese of mixed cow and sheep milk, graded by its sheep-milk share. Ultrafiltration, plant coagulants and curd pressing are all excluded.

Rind
None; smooth, moist white surfaces with mould shapes or cloth marks
Shape
Cylinder
Fresh cheese
Spanish law defines queso fresco as cheese ready to eat as soon as it is made

Sources: Ministerio de Agricultura; Real Decreto 1113/2006 of 29 September; AgroNews Castilla y León; Otero A.

Queso de cassoleta (saladito valenciano)formatge de cassoleta

Cheese from Spain, Valencian Community

Queso de cassoleta is named after its little casserole-shaped mould. It may use goat, cow or sheep milk, alone or mixed.

Shape
Small, round, volcano shape from the cassoleta mould
Size
About 200–500 g
Rind
None; white, tender, moist paste

Sources: Wikipedia (es)

Queso de El Carballo (queso de Taramundi)queso de Taramundi

Cheese from Spain, Asturias

Plain or studded with hazelnuts or walnuts; Wikipedia calls it the only cheese made in Spain with nuts in the paste, and Turismo Asturias the only one in Asturias.

Size
Cylinders of 500 g or 1 kg (Turismo Asturias); 600 g or 1 kg (Wikipedia)
Rind
Thin, cream-coloured

Sources: Vivir Asturias; Wikipedia (es)

Queso de freírqueso de freír

Cheese from Dominican Republic

Firm, salty fresh white cheese with a very high melting point: it holds its shape when fried, so it is sliced and fried (queso frito) for breakfast. Halloumi is the closest substitute.

Milk
cow milk
Moulding and salting
pressed, salted firm white curd
Ripening
none; fresh

Sources: Dominican Cooking

Queso de hoja (Veracruz)

Cheese from Mexico, Veracruz

Fresh pressed cow cheese wrapped in wetland-plant leaves that slow moisture loss in the hot coast climate and add herbal notes; traditional recipe is only milk, salt and rennet.

Sources: DairyNews.today

Queso de servilletaformatge de tovalló

Cheese from Spain, Valencian Community

Shaped by a tied napkin instead of a mould, giving a globe with a top knot.

Rind
White (fresh) to light yellow (cured); cloth weave visible
Size
≤2 kg; squarish globe

Sources: Wikipedia (es)

Queso de Vidiago

Cheese from Spain, Asturias

Soft rectangular farmhouse cow cheese of one family (Collera).

Rind
Thin, soft, yellow
Size
About 1 kg; rectangular

Sources: Wikipedia (es)

Queso de Villalónqueso de Villalón

Cheese from Spain, Castile and León

Queso de Villalón is eaten within a day or two and is similar to Queso de Burgos. A 2017 study notes it is also called Pata mulo, the name of the ripened cheese made from Villalón cheeses that went unsold.

Rind
None; soft, compact paste
Shape
Cylinder
Keeping
Sold the day it is made; keeps at most two days

Sources: Rodríguez L.A.; Wikipedia (es)

Queso palmizuliaQueso palmita (parent type)

Cheese from Venezuela, Zulia

Zulia's fresh white cheese with gas holes; Wikipedia calls palmizulia a softer type of palmita.

Eyes
Holes made by fermenting bacteria are the defining trait of palmita-type cheese (Castro et al. 2012)
Eyes in a palmita-type trial
Cheeses showed gas fermentation 24 hours after making, with eyes 0.5–1 cm high and 1–3 cm long (Vargas et al. 2000). These are palmita-type values, not palmizulia.
Composition (palmita)
pH 5.76 (palmita, Maracaibo retail samples)Measured

Sources: Castro G.; Vargas U.; Wikipedia

Räucherkäse (Formaggio affumicato)Räucherkäse

Cheese from Italy, Trentino-Alto Adige

Räucherkäse is a fresh cheese that is cold-smoked, which the ONAF sheet calls a clash between the old habit of smoking for keeping and a young, sour paste. The smoke comes from conifer sawdust.

Rind
Edible, thin, soft and elastic, light brown and smoked
Size
Cylinder 11.5 cm across and 8 cm high, 0.6–2.0 kg (ONAF); one producer's 2 kg wheel is 18.5 cm across
Composition (one producer)
1,2 g salt per 100 gReported

Sources: ONAF (Organizzazione Nazionale Assaggiatori Formaggi); ONAF; Sennerei Drei Zinnen / Latteria Tre Cime (Toblach)

Robiola ticinese (formaggino)formagitt

Cheese from Switzerland, Ticino

The Ticino robiola is a small fresh rennet cheese that differs from Italian robiola in taste, texture and shape. Its sweet taste comes from a milk that is not acidified, unlike the büscion of the same canton. In 1913 the milk was only warmed to 28 °C and no culture was added.

Size
70–100 g; about 6–7 cm diameter, 3–4 cm high

Sources: Kulinarisches Erbe der Schweiz / Patrimoine culinaire suisse

Sextner Almkäse (Formaggio di montagna di Sesto)Sextner Almkäse

Cheese from Italy, Trentino-Alto Adige, province of Bolzano

It is a large, pressed, semi-cooked mountain cheese whose rind is scraped and brushed every day to clear a fine mould down, which leaves the rind grey-brown and wrinkled.

Milk
Whole cow milk, pasteurised, from mountain farms above 1,300 m around Sexten
Ripening
About 3 months; can go on to 7–8 months
Rind
Wrinkled, fairly hard, grey-brown, with traces of the mould scraped off each day
Size
About 7.0 kgReported
Composition
50 % fat in dry matterReported

Sources: ONAF (Organizzazione Nazionale Assaggiatori Formaggi); Elenco nazionale dei prodotti agroalimentari tradizionali (art. 12

Stracchino di capra

Cheese from Italy, Lazio

A goat-milk version of the soft cow stracchino of northern Italy, which Lazio goat keepers made as an alternative to 'primo sale'; it is eaten fresh after a single coarse cut and a warm stewing.

Size
pezzature di 250 g fino a 2 kgReported
Rind
None, or thin, sometimes bloomy, porcelain-white
Season
March to September or October

Sources: Regione Lazio / ARSIAL; ONAF (Organizzazione Nazionale Assaggiatori Formaggi); ONAF; US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Tilsiter (Swiss)

Cheese from Eastern and central Switzerland

Sold under red, green and yellow labels that tell raw, partly thermised milk from pasteurised milk and creamed milk, each with its own ripening time.

Green label (Past-Tilsiter)
Ripening period 28 daysReported
Red label (surchoix)
Reifezeit mindestens 4 MonateReported
Yellow label (Rahm-Tilsiter)
Reifezeit 1 – 2 MonateReported

Sources: Tilsiter Switzerland; Tilsiter Switzerland; Tilsiter Switzerland; Fuchsmann P.; US Food and Drug Administration 2016; ANSES 2022

Toblacher Stangenkäse (Formaggio originale di Dobbiaco)Toblacher Stangenkäse

Cheese from Italy, Trentino-Alto Adige, province of Bolzano

It was designed as a bar, not a wheel, so it travels and slices easily. The curd is moulded without pressing and ripened only about 6 weeks, which made it a way to use surplus milk.

Rind
Thin, rough, fairly soft, straw-ochre, with traces of greenish mould
Size
Square bar 10 × 10 × 30 cm, about 5 kg
Fat
45 % fat in dry matter

Sources: ONAF (national organisation of cheese tasters); Ministero delle politiche agricole; ONAF

Trappe ÉchourgnacTrappe d'Échourgnac

Cheese from France, Dordogne

A Trappist abbey cheese ripened at the abbey, with a walnut-ripened version beside it. The monks made it from raw milk from 1868, but since 1999 the young cheeses are bought from a dairy and only ripened at the abbey.

Fat
50 % fat (Wikipedia)
Size
Plain cheese 19 cm across, 5 cm thick, 1.8 kg

Sources: Wikipédia (fr); Pudlowski G.

Safety

ANSES names short-ripened uncooked pressed raw-milk cheeses such as morbier, reblochon and saint-nectaire among the main sources of hazards in French raw-milk cheese, which it says include Salmonella, enterohaemorrhagic E. coli and Listeria. It advises pregnant women, young children, people over 65 and people with weak immunity not to eat raw-milk cheeses other than cooked pressed ones such as gruyère or comté. Too little salt lets Mucor grow into the defect called "cat hair" (poil de chat).

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

The Reblochon specification traces its name to "reblâche", the second milking of a rented alpine pasture, a practice it dates to the 13th century, and says trade grew in the 19th century. The Saint-Nectaire specification says the name appears in cooking in the 17th century, and that its appellation rests on a judgment of the Issoire court in 1955. The Cantal specification says Diderot and d'Alembert's encyclopedia pictured its making in the 18th century and that it became an AOC by decree of 19 February 1980. The Tomme des Pyrénées specification dates the first cooperative dairies to 1867.

  1. [cdc-sn2025] Ministère de l'agriculture, Cahier des charges de l'appellation d'origine protégée « Saint-Nectaire », homologated 6 November 2025, BO-Agri n° 2025-47spec
  2. [cdc-cantal2019] Ministère de l'agriculture, Cahier des charges de l'appellation d'origine « Cantal » / « Fourme de Cantal », arrêté of 3 January 2019, BO-Agri n° 2019-03spec
  3. [cdc-reb2020] Ministère de l'agriculture, Cahier des charges de l'AOP « Reblochon » ou « Reblochon de Savoie », arrêté of 31 July 2020 (notice of a minor amendment)spec
  4. [cdc-tdp] Ministère de l'agriculture, Cahier des charges de l'indication géographique protégée « Tomme des Pyrénées », BO-Agri n° 2020-22spec
  5. [cdc-tds] Ministère de l'agriculture, Cahier des charges de l'indication géographique protégée « Tomme de Savoie »spec
  6. [cdc-morbier] INAO, Cahier des charges de l'appellation d'origine « Morbier », version of 18 December 2025spec
  7. [martin2023] Martin J.G.P., Cotter P.D. 2023, Filamentous fungi in artisanal cheeses: A problem to be avoided or a market opportunity? Heliyon 9(4):e15110 (Europe PMC PMC10161367)paper
  8. [mayo2021] Mayo B., Rodríguez J., Vázquez L., Flórez A. 2021, Microbial interactions within the cheese ecosystem and their application to improve quality and safety, Foods 10(3):602paper
  9. [zhang2018] Zhang Y., Kastman E.K., Guasto J.S., Wolfe B.E. 2018, Fungal networks shape dynamics of bacterial dispersal and community assembly in cheese rind microbiomes, Nature Communications 9:336paper
  10. [anses2022] ANSES 2022, Fromages au lait cru, quels risques pour la santé et comment mieux les prévenir (8 April 2022)gov