"$56"-*5 4r/&84 ALAIN MÉNARD AND HIS LOVE FOR ALL THINGS CHEESE
Le Blondeau young Gouda, Camembert- TUZMF-F-POH4BVMU -&YQMPSBUFVSCMVFBOE L’Affluent in Mamirolle style, with its bloomy rind, are a few of the dozen or so cheeses that you will find in the FTR cooler case. Ménard makes a trio of popular Ched- EBSTm-F1PSUBHF/PUP-F1PSUBHF/P 3 – which have been aged from two months up to 10 months, some of which receive a tradition treatment, he says. “Cheddar that’s been aged in cheesecloth is harder and almost more like a Parme- san because it loses so much humidity. It crumbles.” The bacteria used produces different types of cheese, says Ménard stressing that a wheel’s aging is critical to flavour and texture development. “It’s like wine. It starts with the ground, UIFUFSSPJS8FUPPTUBSUXJUIUIFSBXNBUFSJBM on the ground which is what the cows eat.” Ménard’s L’Affluent has quickly become one of my FTR favourites: it has an ivory- coloured paste and an orangish rind and just a hint of “barnyard” aroma – it’s a cheese that oozes nicely when at room temperature, a step that Ménard stresses is important to serving fine cheese properly. “Cheese shouldn’t be served cold. Take it out of the fridge for at least a minimum
of 30 minutes before eating it. It will taste completely different,” he says. 8IJMFUIFTIFMWFTBUUIF'53NBSLFUQMBDF are currently stocked with fine local pro- EVDUTBOE&VSPQFBOHPPETUIBUDPNQMFNFOU Ménard’s cheese, he envisions growing the business and hopes to increase his cheese production in order to sell into other retailers and fine food stores. Like the business’s name – an homage to the rapids that coursed along the Ottawa River where Precambrian Shield meets St. Lawrence Lowlands – Fromagerie des Trois Rapides is part of local culture in Franco- Ontario and French Canada, especially when it comes to cheese lovers. i8FBSFJEFBMMZMPDBUFECFUXFFO0UUBXB and Montreal,” says Ménard. “I hope we can gradually start serving the health-food stores and grocery stores there, repeating what I did with Green Beaver. But for now, I want to really focus on making these organic artisanal cheeses.” Food writer Andrew Coppolino lives in Rockland. He is the author of “Farm to Table” and co-author of “Cooking with Shakespeare.” Follow him on Instagram @ andrewcoppolino.
Fromagerie des Trois Rapides à Hawkesbury. (Andrew Coppolino)
ANDREW COPPOLINO andrewcoppolino@gmail.com
yeast to make food. I learned the basics of making cheese.” He started FTR in 2023 during the pandemic, a time that wasn’t conducive to introducing new personal products to Green Beaver customers without being able to be face-to-face with them. 8IFOIFDPVMEOUWJTJUDMJFOUT IFUPPLB leap toward his passion – and a dream – to one day start a small cheese shop. That leap made, he contacted a well- known fromagère in the province: Margaret Peters-Morris of Glengarry Fine Cheese near Lancaster, Ont., about an hour’s drive from Hawkesbury. Peters-Morris has been making cheese since the 1990s, and her company also specializes in providing technical support to artisanal cheesemakers and distributes supplies to help fromageries with their build out. Ménard approached her as he was setting up his space, and she consulted on the design. The affinage room, a fairly tight rectangle with large windows facing out onto the store, has a series of shelves on which might be perched up to 100 wheels of cheese each weighing between five and ten kilograms – some encased in black food-grade wax. The room is controlled for precise conditions of temperature and humidity to facilitate the cheese’s ideal evolution and encourage the various microbes – yeasts, bacteria and fungi molds – that help spur milk into becoming cheese. Hard cheeses and soft cheeses require different aging conditions in terms of humidity and time. Like good wine, it starts with terroir Ménard’s cheese is made at Glengarry, and he says FTR strives to make some- thing a little bit different, “something a little more traditional.” The result is FTR organic cheese – starting with organic cow’s milk, of course – and what he refers to as “artisanal” cheese that is made “the way they used to make cheese.” Sourcing milk from both Jersey and Hols- tein cows – “milk is not just milk,” Ménard says – fat is key to making cheese and the different cows produce different milks. He‘d like to add sheep’s milk cheese to his repertoire but says it’s harder to obtain.
I’m browsing the displays of specialty foods at Fromagerie des Trois Rapides (FTR) on County Road 17 in Hawkesbury waiting for owner Alain Ménard to transit from his other business, The Green Beaver, a few minutes away. The well-established Green Beaver brand, which he started with his wife 23 years ago, sells personal care products such as aluminum-free deodorant, toothpaste and sunscreen found in health-food stores, grocery stores and at pharmacies. It’s a business model and a customer reach that Ménard would like to eventually replicate for FTR where the unique condi- ments, foie gras, chocolate, and spreads and preserves I survey are the foreground to the main event at the business, an “affinage” room where the cheeses quietly sit. Affinage is a key period of time during which cheeses mature and age – and thereby gain their distinctive flavours, aromas and textures. “A lot of fresh cheese doesn’t really taste like much. It’s only after aging that it does,” says Ménard. A leap toward his love of cheese I happen to consider cheese one of my personal care products: it’s a regular pur- chase for me and satisfies both body and soul. The savoury morsel is what American literary critic Clifton Fadiman called “milk’s leap toward immortality.” Cheese is, in fact, “alive” as it changes and evolves: making a high-quality soft, semi- soft or hard cheese requires controlling and shaping live microscopic organisms in their environment. Ménard is a subject-matter expert when it comes to microbes and uniquely suited to understanding how they play a role in cheese-making having graduated with a degree in microbiology from the Faculty of "HSJDVMUVSBMBOE&OWJSPONFOUBM4DJFODFTBU McGill University. “I took a lot of food microbiology courses because as an 18-year-old I guess I was interested in fermenting stuff,” Ménard says XJUIBTNJMFi8IFOZPVUBMLBCPVUGPPE microbiology, it’s when you use bacteria and
Cheese is, in fact, “alive” as it changes and evolves: making a high-quality soft, semi-soft or hard cheese requires controlling and shaping live microscopic organisms in their environment. (Andrew Coppolino)
GAGNANT DU CONCOURS
FÉLICITATIONS À PASCAL CHARBONNEAU de Hawkesbury, le GAGNANT du CONCOURS de la FÊTE DES MÈRES!! Il a gagné un chèque-cadeau de 50 $ chez la PHARMACIE JEAN-COUTU. Ce concours a été publié dans notre publication les 23 et 30 avril. Merci à chacun des participants et aux commanditaires.
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