Tomme
A general French and Italian name for a modest round mountain cheese, often made from skimmed milk.
Also: toma, tome, tomme de montagne
Tomme, toma in Italian, is a general name for a fairly small round cheese of the Alps and Pyrenees, typically a semi-firm wheel with a grey, mottled natural rind. In the mountains, farmers skimmed their milk to make butter and turned the leftover milk into tommes for the household, so many are lower in fat than the big Alpine wheels. Tomme de Savoie, protected as PGI, is the best known, along with Tomme des Pyrénées and Italian Toma Piemontese. Tommes are made from cow, goat or sheep milk and can be young and mild or aged and earthy. The word may come from a Savoyard term for a small mountain cheese.