FAWCO Update -- December 2005/January 2006

“Cheese, Please! - Vacherin Mont D’or”

It astonishes me that a small country like Switzerland produces several of the world’s best cheeses. I thought I would inaugurate this new series on the Cheeses of Switzerland with an article about one of my favorites, which truly is a wheel of edible gold, Vacherin Mont d’Or.

I bought my first Vacherin Mont d’Or because I was curious about what was in the lovely, round wooden box with such a poetic name stamped on top. It turns out that the cheese is encircled by a thin band of spruce or pine, and then it is set into a box, all because it is such a soft cheese that if it were not supported, it would collapse into an unattractive (but still delicious) amorphous blob. In fact, ripe Vacherin Mont d’Or, sold after a 3-4 week aging process, should be runny enough to be eaten with a spoon. In addition, an easy and delectable way to prepare it is to bake the whole thing in the oven and eat it as a fondue (see below).

Vacherin Mont d’Or is buttery and full-flavored with a slight bite, and is perfumed with a subtle balsamy aroma that comes from the spruce band. The rind is pinkish-beige and is edible, although many people prefer not to eat it, and the paste is cream colored. Vacherin Mont d’Or is seasonal, and is only available from the end of September to the end of March. It comes from canton Vaud, specifically from the Vallée de Joux that borders France. The “golden mountain” Mont d’Or lies just across the border in France, near the Swiss town of Vallorbe. Vacherin Mont d’Or, and its French counterpart, Vacherin du Haut-Doubs, are relatively young cheeses, having been made in this area for only about 200 years.

In the 1800s, a goat cheese called “chevrotin” (from the French word for goat, chèvre) was made in the Mont d’Or region. In the winter months, there is not enough goats’ milk to make cheese, as goats only produce milk for a limited time after giving birth and usually only give birth in the spring. Cows, on the other hand, can be mated and thus give birth any time during the year, so their milk is still available during the winter months. Mont d’Or was invented to make use of fall and winter milk, and was called “vacherin” (from the French word for cow, vache). It used to be that both the Swiss and French Vacherin Mont d’Or cheeses were made from raw milk. During the 1980s, an outbreak of listeria (virulent bacteria) food poisoning that killed 34 people in Switzerland was traced back to contaminated Vacherin Mont d’Or. It is debatable whether the contamination was due to unhygienic conditions in the cellars where the cheese was stored, or to the use of contaminated raw milk during the cheese-making process. In any case, since 1984, better hygiene standards have been introduced and now all Swiss Vacherin Mont d’Or can be made only with thermized milk that has been heated to 60°C for 1 minute. This is a gentler heat treatment than pasteurization. No contamination has been reported since the initial outbreak in the 1980s.

Although I love Swiss Vacherin Mont d’Or, I have to confess that the French raw milk version is better. There is nothing like the taste of a raw milk cheese. Hard cheeses made from raw milk such as Emmentaler and Gruyère are less susceptible to listeria contamination as the bacteria cannot grow in them. Just to put it in perspective, millions of Europeans have been eating raw milk cheeses for centuries, fewer problems compared than meat products in the U.S. However, if you are pregnant, elderly, or have a compromised immune system, you might want to stay away from raw milk soft cheeses. If you like to eat on the wild side (non-pasteurized milk cheeses aged for less than 60 days, like Vacherin Mont d’Or, are illegal in the U.S.), try some for the subversive thrill!

Vacherin Mont d’Or is available as a whole cheese, or in slices. For an inexcusably decadent experience, I highly recommend buying a whole Vacherin Mont d’Or, eating it all by yourself, and then digesting for the next week. The bottom line, as Steve Jenkins states in his book The Cheese Primer, is that Vacherin Mont d’Or is “one of the highest achievements of human civilization.”

How to eat Vacherin Mont d’Or: At room temperature, you can eat it as a first course by itself or with bread OR as a main meal with boiled potatoes and vegetables OR as a dessert with fruit.

To prepare a fondue, take off the wooden lid, wrap the cheese with foil (not covering the top), puncture the top crust a few times with a fork, pour a small glass of white wine on top, and bake at 200°C for 25 minutes. Remove the top crust and dip bread or vegetables into your fondue. (by Min K from the AWC Bern)

FAWCO Upcoming Regionals

January 27-29, 2006, Casablanca, Morocco (Region 7)

The ladies of the Casablanca American International Women’s Club and the American Women’s Association of Rabat extend a warm invitation to all sister FAWCO clubs to join them for three days of fun, camaraderie, and learning.

Some of the activities we have planned are tours of the famous Habbous (for some serious local shopping), the Hassan II Mosque - written up as the second largest mosque in the world, lunch at the newly opened Rick’s Café (remember Ingrid Bergman and Humphry Bogart in Casablanca? We’ve planned trips to the hammam, a fun session of henna hand-painting while savoring exotic Moroccan dishes as spirited Berber music is playing in the background. So please join us for this very special time of fellowship and fun! In attendance will be Celeste Brown, FAWCO 1st VP for Communications. Contact Diana Loftin, Casablanca FAWCO Representative at leerocke2002@yahoo.com or Cynthia Smith-Ayed, AIWC President at familyayed@yahoo.fr, for futher information or reservations.

The American Women’s Club of Bern will be hosting an open meeting on Thursday, January 19, 2006, 9:00-11:30, at the Hotel Allegro in Bern, Switzerland.

Cost: CHF 10 for non-AWCB members.

Special guest speaker will be Paula Daeppen, Federation of American Women’s Clubs Overseas, and CONGO Representative to the United Nations. The topic of her presentation will be FAWCO’s worldwide “NetWorks” initiative to raise awareness of the U.N. Millennium Development Goals and to raise $75,000 for the purchase of 15,000 mosquito nets. It will be possible to participate in FAWCO’s “NetWorks” project; each bed net costs CHF 6.50. In attendance on behalf of FAWCO will be 2nd Vice President Ashley O’Reilly. For further information or to purchase a bed net, contact vp-reps@fawco.org.

To register contact vp-reps@fawco.org before January 12, 2006.

FAWCO Region 5: Meeting in Berlin September 26, 2005

Our FAWCO President Emily van Eerten, Foundation President Mary Rose Stauder and FAWCO VP Celeste Brown joined us at the Region 5 Meeting in Berlin and supported us with their advice and great spirit in the planning of our FAWCO INTERIM CONFERENCE, March 2-6, 2006. The AWC of Berlin will host the conference and is already deeply involved in the preparation for it.

Angelika McLarren, President of the AWCB, and Donna Cohn-Brand, FAWCO Rep, invited the other five clubs of Region 5 to share the plans and delegate some of the responsibilities for the conference.

Angelika gave us a taste of her talent for managing events by presenting us a perfect program, starting with a tour through the Hilton Hotel, our conference home, lunch at the historic Kaisersaal, the venue of our gala dinner, a walk through the heart of the reunited Berlin to the Reichstag and even a reception at the parliament with an interview of a leading party member on Foreign Support given by Germany.

The famous FAWCO fever spread and inspired us all to get involved and share the preparation for this conference and the celebration of FAWCO’s 75th anniversary in the city where it all started in 1931. It is such a moving thought to be able to celebrate the diamond jubilee in the city that (in 1931) was the heart of entertainment where the key artists from Europe and America, as well the Eastern countries, got together to share the latest sounds, cabaret, music theater and jazz in an overflowing carefree and exuberant spirit. Nobody would have believed that only a few years later this very music was forbidden by the Nazis, Europe suffered in World War II, Berlin burned down to ruins and, after WWII was over, Berlin was split into two parts which soon became more remote and strange to each other than two countries with an ocean in between. When only 15 years ago the Iron Curtain fell, Berlin was reunited, rebuilt, reshaped and reborn to that great international feeling – much like the spirit of 1931.

FAWCO’s Diamond Jubilee will truly be jubilation. Angelika was so right to choose the conference working title “Tear Down Walls”. Our AWC of Hamburg took responsibility for several individual tasks. Everyone is welcome to join in and get involved. Please contact Pat Ritz, our AWCH FAWCO Rep.

See you all in Berlin, March 2-6, 2006,
Frauke R-H, FAWCO Region 5 RC