Mountain cheeses

In the Pyrénées-Orientales, mountain cheese is born of the summer pastures. According to Agreste Occitanie, nearly 250 farms sent their animals on transhumance there in 2018: more than 11,000 cattle and as many sheep, on some 67,000 hectares of shared pasture, managed for the most part by pastoral groups. Nearly four animals in five are driven up by 1 July, and most come back down before November, after about four months on the high pastures.

The Pyrenean tomme is the heir to this highland economy. Its specification explains its uncooked pressed curd by the scarcity of wood in the massif; it also recalls that shepherds made it in summer to sell it on their return from the high pastures, and that the first fruitières, or dairy cooperatives, appeared in 1867. Registered as a PGI “Tomme des Pyrénées” in 1996, it was granted in 2020 a specification approved by the European Union that includes 160 communes of the département, from Cerdagne and Capcir to the Fenouillèdes and the Albères.

The indication imposes precise rules. The milk is from cows, goats or a mixture of the two; ewe’s milk is permitted only in a blend and must come from Pyrenean breeds of the western part of the massif. The animals must graze for at least 91 days a year, and the wheels are matured for 21 to 90 days depending on the milk and the size. Tommes made from pure ewe’s milk therefore remain farmhouse cheeses, outside the PGI. The PDO Ossau-Iraty, often cited for the Pyrenees, does not cover the département.

The essentials happen on the farm. Farmers sell tommes, fresh cheeses and yoghurts directly, some of which carry the Valeurs Parc naturel régional des Pyrénées catalanes mark. In the Vallespir, a sheepfold in Prats-de-Mollo-la-Preste makes, all year round, a raw ewe’s milk tomme, brousse and mató, a fresh cheese with a Catalan name, which it sells at the valley’s markets.