by Austin Coe Butler
Long, long ago, in a prelapsarian time some cheese lovers call “the Before Times,” a certain cheese graced our case. Ask any of our senior staff (we’re talking 7+ years) about this cheese and they’ll turn misty eyed and sentimental. “Abbaye de Belloc,” they’ll mutter wistfully, like the memory of some forgotten dream. But now, Abbaye de Belloc is back!
Initially, this cheese left our case due to an untenable price increase, and then, five years later, in 2018, all export of it to the United States ceased. Reasons were given, justifications made, as is typical for a shuddering loss of this nature. The monks protested all the new forms they had to fill out under the FDA’s Foreign Supplier Verification Program, which involves salubrious (or onerous) documentation about their production practices, have HACCP plans and recall procedures in place, and pay for costly, repeat third-party inspections. For larger, corporate cheese producers who have the means and resources to meet these standards, this is only a minor inconvenience, but for a monastery of monks, it proved insuperable. The monks were aging, too, and had better, more spiritual matters to tend to than earthly bureaucracy. But a new generation of young monks and cheese-makers have made their way to the ancient Abbaye Notre-Dame de Belloc to bring new life and energy to the creamery, and the first wheels of their cheese have landed on American shores and taken back their throne on American cheese counters.
For those who’ve never had their palates graced by Abbaye de Belloc, it’s similar to Ossau-Iraty (the cheese we started carrying in Abbaye’s absence) or Chebris. Like those two, Abbaye de Belloc is a sheep’s milk Basque tomme style cheese. It’s flavor has been described as sweet, like clotted-cream or burnt caramel, with a delicate lanolin or wool aroma. Most remarkable though is its texture: dense, creamy, and silken, which is especially rare for a sheep’s milk cheese. But why read about a cheese when you can come into the shop and try it for yourself?
Rejoice, brothers and sisters! Rejoice! Abbaye de Belloc has returned!