Le Mi-Carême

Le Mi-Carême (named after l'Isle-aux-Grues's traditional Acadian Mid-Lent celebrations) is made by Fromagerie de l'Île-aux-Grues. The island is situated in the St. Lawrence a bit downstream from la ville du Québec. Le Mi-Carême is a cow-milk cheese in the brie family. It is a very sophisticated cheese, full of strong mushroomy and nutty flavours. The Fromagerie de l'Îles-aux-Grues is a cooperative formed by 14 milk producers of the island in 1977. At first producing only cheddar, the fromagerie began producing le Mi-Carême at the end of the '90s. As one who loves the stronger cheeses, I quite enjoyed this cheese on its own after supper. My attempt to make a mushroom alfredo sauce with le Mi-Carême was moderately successful; next time I will tweak my recipe a bit to bring out the rich flavours of the cheese out more. It sells for about $5.80 per 100 grams.

 

El niño

El niño comes to us from Fromagerie des Cantons of Farnham, Québec, about an hour east of Montréal, between St-Jean-sur-Richelieu and Granby. This is a mysterious cheese with very little internet presence, but don't let that deter you. Simply put, it is hands-down my favourite québécois cheese so far. It's a semi-firm cheese made from raw Jersey cow milk (from the Ferme Janecek herd just down the road in Dunham), with a rind washed with red wine (there is also available a version without the red wine). The delicate taste of the cheese combined with the fruity and sweet taste of the wine equates to an absolutely wonderful cheese experience. I admit I didn't experiment much with this cheese. I have no idea how it goes with this food or that wine. I simply gobbled it all up on its own. My roommates are asking me to buy more. It retails for about $4.60 per 100 grams.