Banon

Banon

What it is

In winter, when the goats dried up and no new cheese could be made, Provençal farms folded the last rounds into chestnut leaves to carry them through to spring. The leaves are gathered brown in autumn, when their tannin is lowest, soaked in five-per-cent vinegar water and tied with raffia, and the cheese then ferments inside them for at least ten days — the only French AOP ripened wrapped in leaves.

In the kitchen

Let it come fully to room temperature and untie the parcel at the table: the vegetal, mushroomy smell that lifts off it is half of what you paid for. Scrape the paste off the leaf and leave the leaf.

Goes with

Honey Thyme Rosemary Fig Walnut Olive oil Pear Rye berries

Something wrong here, or missing? Tell us