Mountain cheese
Large, firm cheeses from high pastures, made to keep through winter, such as Comté, Beaufort and Gruyère.
Also: Bergkäse, fromage de montagne, mountain product
Mountain cheese is a broad name for the big, cooked, pressed wheels made in the Alps, Jura, Pyrenees, Carpathians and other ranges. Remote farms and summer pastures could not carry milk to market, so it was turned into large cheeses that kept for a year or more and could be carried down on a mule. Comté, Beaufort, Gruyère, Emmental, Fontina, Bergkäse, Abondance and Ossau-Iraty are classics. The European Union also offers an optional label, mountain product, for food made in mountain areas. Mountain cheeses are known for nutty, brothy, fruity flavours and are central to fondue and raclette. Himalayan churpi is a mountain cheese in a quite different form.