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Fermentation Atlas

Cheese from France, Savoie and Haute-Savoie, with milk also from three communes of the Ain

Tomme de Savoie PGITomme de Savoie

Raw or thermised cow milk, often partly skimmed, is seeded with mesophilic or thermophilic cultures and set with rennet at 30–35 °C. The curd is cut to maize-to-hazelnut grains, stirred, moulded, pressed and left to sour for at least five hours before salting. It ripens at least 30 days on wooden boards in humid cellars, where a grey rind of Mucor and other moulds grows. Made in 8 steps over 32 days – 33 days. The longest step, ripen on wooden boards, takes at least 30 days (Ministère de l'agriculture 2019) and runs at 8–14 °C (Ministère de l'agriculture 2019). Salt is 1.2–2 % (Ministère de l'agriculture 2019). Mesophilic and thermophilic lactic cultures and Mucor and other surface flora on the rind, grown on wooden boards do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main stepat least 30 daysSet[tomme-cdc-2019]Ripen on wooden boards
Temperature8–14 °CSet[tomme-cdc-2019]Ripen on wooden boards
Salt1.2–2 %Set[tomme-cdc-2019]Salt in brine or with dry salt

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedThe specification fixes the steps, temperatures and times, not amounts. Washing the curd (délactosage) and salting in the vat are banned.
Cow milk · At least 75 % of the herd Abondance, Montbéliarde or Tarentaise cows; raw or thermised, and may be partly skimmed; pasteurisation and microfiltration are banned[tomme-cdc-2019]
Mesophilic and/or thermophilic cultures, including surface flora[tomme-cdc-2019]
Rennet[tomme-cdc-2019]
Salt and calcium chloride[tomme-cdc-2019]
Starter: mesophilic and/or thermophilic cultures; rennet

Total time across the recorded steps: 32 days – 33 days

Start
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up to 8 °C

What changes: Starting material: cow milk collected daily and kept at 8 °C or below

Step 1 of 8
Keep the milk cool
Time
up to 2 days
Set
Temperature
up to 8 °C
Set
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Mucor
Mucor fuscus
Mucor lanceolatus
Moulds

Output: cool raw milk, which may be thermised and partly skimmed.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

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

What makes this one different

Tomme de Savoie is a small pressed cheese that is not cooked, and it may be made from partly skimmed milk, so its fat can be low. Its grey rind of Mucor grows on wooden boards in humid cellars. The curd is never heated above 40 °C and never washed, and it must sour for five hours in a warm room before it is salted.

Milk
Cow milk from herds of at least 75 % Abondance, Montbéliarde or Tarentaise cows; raw or thermised, often partly skimmed
Shape and size
Flat cylinder 18–21 cm across and 5–8 cm high, 1.2–2 kg; a small format of 400–900 g
Fat and salt
At least 9 % fat on total weight, at least 45 % dry matter, salt 1.2–2 %
Ripening
At least 30 days on wooden boards

Related ferments

Variants

  • Small format400–900 g, at most 8 cm high, same character
  • Farm-made (fermier)From one farm's own herd of at least 75 % local breeds

Safety

The rules cap milk storage at 8 °C and set a minimum of 30 days of ripening; pasteurisation is banned, so the cheese is made from raw or thermised milk.

History and sources

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

Tomme de Savoie is held to be the oldest Savoie cheese, made before the 14th century. Farm families made it with whatever milk was left after the cream was taken for butter, so fat and size varied from farm to farm. Village dairies (fruitières), which appeared about 150 years before the 1990s registration, later took up the making. It was registered as an EU PGI in 1996.

  1. [tomme-cdc-2019] Ministère de l'agriculture, Cahier des charges de l'IGP « Tomme de Savoie », homologated 16 Dec 2019, in force from 11 Apr 2020spec
  2. [tomme-eu-1996] Association Marque Collective Savoie, Application for registration of the PGI Tomme de Savoie under Regulation (EEC) 2081/92 (registration summary, EN), eAmbrosia attachment 73675spec
  3. [lebreton2020] Lebreton A. et al. 2020, Comparative genomics applied to Mucor species with different lifestyles, BMC Genomics 21:135, doi:10.1186/s12864-019-6256-2paper