Emily In France Exclusive 🇫🇷 5 Winter Cheeses to Try Before the Ides of March

Yes, cheese has a season!

One of the most surprising tidbits I share with people on my food tours is that cheese has a season – and the French love themselves some seasonality. (Though I must be frank… I’ve been seeing a worrying number of strawberries on sale lately. Is it just me? Do I need to investigate? Time will tell, and I digress.)

As I’m sure I’ve shared here before, I’m a major seasonal food Stan. I love gorging myself on the very best of summer watermelon and tomatoes or winter potimarron and kale until I can barely stand the sight of it, only to forget about the item in question for months and find my appetite has returned by the time the cycle has begun again.

Despite many cheeses being available all year long, some of them are indeed innately seasonal. Fresh goat cheese, for instance, is at its best in the spring and summer months, when the nannies lactate naturally following the birth of the season's kids. (As compared to cows or sheep, goats are particularly difficult to milk out of season, requiring the use of hormones or special lights to force lactation. And the flavor of an in-season chèvre made with grazing goats is truly unparalleled.)

Many cheeses seem tailor-made for colder months, like mushroomy Brie de Melun or sweet-and-savory Rogue River Blue. But while these cheeses may be at their most delicious in winter, this is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to cheese seasonality. Indeed, some of my favorites aren't even produced after mid-March.

Want to reap the benefits of these seasonal specialties while there’s still time? Don't worry… I’ve got you covered.

1. Raclette

When I first encountered raclette, it was at the age of 14, via an apparatus placed unceremoniously at the center of my host family’s kitchen table, alongside a bowl of steamed potatoes, a jar of cornichons, and plates of cold charcuterie. We were each given our own little frying pan, which we filled with slices of the nutty cheese and toasted under the heating element until it became bubbly and browned.

This is raclette, a word that refers to both the cheese and the means of preparing it. The semisoft cheese historically hails from Valais, in Switzerland, but today is made the world over. Traditionally, a half-wheel of the cheese would have been affixed to a different apparatus with a single heating element and then scraped (racler, in French) onto plates of potatoes and charcuterie. These days, most French families have a machine like the ones you’ll find at Monbleu, which allows you to melt individual portions of not just the classic cheese but also iterations flavored with anything from black peppercorns to nettles to truffle. You’ll find these and other flavors everywhere from your local supermarket to your local cheese shop all winter long, but as soon as things warm up, it becomes far tougher to track down.