Cheesy

One of the other local specialities our young Frenchman recommended was Epoisses cheese. This time we were able to reply that we had already tried it.

The previous day we had gone over to Epoisses, a nearby village. While there we had lunched at the local auberge. We had both had the pork fillet, in my case with the mustard sauce, but the Fox had had it with the Epoisses (cheese) sauce. He’d thoroughly enjoyed it, as had I with my version.

Afterwards we ventured to look around the castle grounds. (The inside is only open in high summer.) The first thing we learnt was that the box for Epoisses cheese features an image of the castle.

 

The castle

The castle

The school within the castle walls & still used as such

 

The church, once part if a 12th century abbey, seen from the outside walls

The dovecote

 

Inside the dovecote

We came across the cheese once more when we were dining in our hotel in Beaune. We decided to go for the set Burgundy menu, which included “nonette de pain de l’epoisses”. Nonette is sort of gingerbread local to the area. It’s quite different from an English gingerbread loaf which tends to very moist & quite spicy. This gingerbread is quite dry & only very gently spiced, more the sort of thing you make gingerbread men with. Anyhow, a slice of Epoisses cheese was placed on top & then the whole was warmed through – a very tasty cheese course.