Par
Jeanne MORCELLET
Published on
Dec 3 2024 at 9:02 a.m.
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Aude comes from Amiens, but it really doesn't matter, because cheese doesn't know no border and since her childhood Aude has enjoyed it with enthusiasm.
Norman by adoption, for 7 years she set up her first business on rue Thiers, opposite the church of St-Martin de L'Aigle (Orne). The street was charming, certainly, but too discreet, almost secret, and the work it underwent for two years caused a drop in traffic and business.
Move or stop
In short, at some point, we had to choose, move or stop. Aude didn't take long to decide when the new address presented itself to her.
Three days to sign and move in, not one more! Now established place of the Hallher shop has a clear view of the vast sky and the pretty square, and the cheesemaker can count on merchant friends and very loyal customers.
Since its opening on Tuesday October 29, she still enjoys her job just as much.
An incredible, exciting job. We exchange with producers to obtain a more garlicky or strawier cheese depending on the taste of consumers, we create links with customers, great stories and encounters are made.
Its customers bring back products from their travels
She affirms, “I have the chance to work for very open clients, with whom I discuss a lot, about new products, their feelings and their appreciations, clients who also bring me small pieces of this or that cheese or this or that product, like these fish terrines from the Basque country for example, which they particularly appreciated during their holidays and which I can taste and select afterwards.
Making the trays
Aude works to order. She makes end-of-meal platters with whole cheeses. Like a florist her bouquets, she composes her trays according to a cardinal idea: good balance. She takes into account the desires of her customers and her loyal followers with tailor-made creations, “a camembert if they ask me, their two or three favorites, a surprise and a great classic”.
She also prepares aperitif platters, cheeses alone or cheese-charcuterie platters, dinner aperitifs with little extra nibbles, raclette platters, etc.
Without land, no meadows, no cows…
His knowledge in the matter is impressive but as cheese is a fresh, living, natural product, his domain is limitless.
The flavors and texture of cheese change so much from season to season, from one meadow to another, from one climate to another, from one weather to another
The former geography and history teacher, very attached to the notion of terroir and earth, vibrates for the identity of each cheese linked to the identity and geography of a territory.
Because without land, no meadows and without meadows no herbivores, no cows, sheep, goats, buffaloes. In a word, no cheese, anything called cheese.
Cheese is a living, fresh, farm or artisanal product, necessarily made from raw milk, with a personality, a character, an identity
Aude knows it well, raw milk cheese is becoming an exceptional product and therefore “an endangered product. It is necessarily attached to a slope of the terroir, to precipitation, to hygrometry, to sun, to wind, to flowering, to the hand of the producer, to his convictions and his energy.
However, all these particularities which form the identity of cheese are called into question in an increasingly standardized, standardized and cautious society.
Standardization of taste
Cheese is threatened by the standardization of taste. If regulations around raw milk tighten further, it will become very difficult to produce real, good cheese. There is a lot of talk about the free trade agreement between the European Union and Mercosur, and what about the future of raw milk cheese?
Aude is worried. The fifteen producers with whom she works have unique know-how and irreplaceable experience.
In the land of Camembert
Farm-made and made with raw milk “it can't be any other way”, or even artisanal, the good Camembert has a “pretty, fairly regular flowery rind with a fluffy, soft, slightly cottony appearance. In the mouth, it is supple, creamy but not runny. It has a tendency to sag, to try to save itself, but it must not turn into a puddle of milk when you cut it.” The Camembert reflects the work of its producer and is the result of his choices and commitments. “Full in the mouth but not spicy, not ammoniated, it has a real roundness, but without bitterness or a very slight bitterness which does not bother. »
The offbeat, atypical, exceptional products that she offers at Cloches et Sabots “do not exist”, only at her place.
Cheese is a pleasure productshe claims it.
When he arrives at Aude young, he goes through the links of Haloirs of Neaufles-Auvergny.
Let him live his cheese life
At that moment, Aude is not afraid to define him as “a real teenager, who you have to know how to frame without completely controlling him”. The maturing time is crucial and fundamental and Aude takes great care to take care of it.
She takes charge of his cheese, directs him a little, still lets him live his cheese life because otherwise he would just do as he pleases and then…
Two to three times a week, she will watch them, monitor them, gently control them. She caresses them with her gaze, turns them over, surrounds them with affection, smells them. The expert analyzes them with professionalism and finesse.
When the weather is stormy or unstable, the cheeses react differently and she goes to their bedside every day.
“They are then less stable and more sensitive. Depending on the flower that develops, we brush them, we smell them, we flatter them. You have to trust your analysis. Cheese is a product alive and naturalit may be subject to production hazards.”
A cheese, a reading, a concert
For at least 10 to 12 days, she educates and pampers them before presenting them to her clients.
We leave here with cheese, a reading tip or a concert idea. Because cheese is living, anchored in real life, like art, wine, reading.
The one who tries to broaden the taste horizons of her customers, offers them the best if possible, always the best,” when the cheese sold has reached the quintessence of its taste. When I can’t take it any further taste-wise.”
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