Chaource is a French cheese, originally manufactured in the village of Chaource

Chaource

Chaource is a commune in the Aube department in north-central France.Highlights: church .A cheese is named after this village. See Chaource cheese.-Population:-External links:*...

 in the Champagne-Ardenne

Champagne-Ardenne

Champagne-Ardenne is one of the 27 regions of France. It is located in the northeast of the country, bordering Belgium, and consists of four departments: Aube, Ardennes, Haute-Marne, and Marne. The region is famous for its sparkling white wine . Its rivers, most of which flow west, include the...

 region.

Chaource is a cow's milk

Milk

Milk is a white liquid produced by the mammary glands of mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals before they are able to digest other types of food. Early-lactation milk contains colostrum, which carries the mother's antibodies to the baby and can reduce the risk of many...

 cheese

Cheese

Cheese is a generic term for a diverse group of milk-based food products. Cheese is produced throughout the world in wide-ranging flavors, textures, and forms....

, cylindrical in shape at around 10 cm in diameter and 6 cm in height, weighing either 250 or 450 g. The central pâte is soft, creamy in colour, and slightly crumbly, and is surrounded by a white Penicillium candidum rind.

History

The cheese has been made in its namesake village since at least the Middle Ages

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

. Cheese is still manufactured there, ranging from small cheese makers to industrial scale production further away. It is only made in a tightly controlled area in the départements of Aube

Aube

Aube is a department in the northeastern part of France named after the Aube River. In 1995, its population was 293,100 inhabitants.- History :Aube is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790...

 and Yonne

Yonne

Yonne is a French department named after the Yonne River. It is one of the four constituent departments of Burgundy in eastern France and its prefecture is Auxerre. Its official number is 89....

.

Manufacture

It was recognised as an AOC

Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée

Appellation d’origine contrôlée , which translates as "controlled designation of origin", is the French certification granted to certain French geographical indications for wines, cheeses, butters, and other agricultural products, all under the auspices of the government bureau Institut National...

 cheese in 1970, and has been fully regulated since 1977.

The AOC regulations state that:

• Coagulation must be principally lactic, and last at least 12 hours.
• Drainage of the cheese must be slow and spontaneous.

Made using a similar recipe to that of Brie

Brie

Brie is a historic region of France most famous for its dairy products, especially Brie cheese. It was once divided into two sections ruled by different feudal lords: the western Brie française, corresponding roughly to the modern department of Seine-et-Marne in the Île-de-France region; the...

, affinage is usually between two and four weeks and the cheese is generally eaten young. The gently-salted central pâte has a light taste and a characteristic 'melt-in-the-mouth' texture. The fat content is a minimum of 50%.

Regulations currently allow both pasteurized

Pasteurization

Pasteurization is a process of heating a food, usually liquid, to a specific temperature for a definite length of time, and then cooling it immediately. This process slows microbial growth in food...

or unpasteurized milk to be used during manufacture.