Frinault

What is Frinault Cheese?

Frinault is made in the countryside around Orléans, in the Loiret department of the Centre-Val de Loire region. It takes its name from Eugène Frinault. In 1872 the family farmed near Orléans with two cows, made cheese for themselves and sold what was left over at local markets. The cheese caught on, and in 1877 they opened a dairy in Fleury-aux-Choux, a small town north of Orléans that became Fleury-les-Aubrais in 1908. Their cheese won bronze at the Amiens and Paris exhibitions in 1877 and gold in Paris in 1899.

The method is close to camembert. It is a soft-paste, natural-rind cheese made from pasteurized whole cow's milk with 50% fat, seeded with Penicillium candidum and aged at 12 °C for roughly two weeks in a humid cellar. Ripening happens east of Orléans, in Châteauneuf-sur-Loire, at Savall-Affineur.

Each cheese is a disc 10 cm across and 2 cm thick, weighing 120 g. The ashed version has the same dimensions but runs 50 g heavier. Frinault cendré, also called Frinault bleu, is seeded with Penicillium glaucum or camembertii and ripened while still damp in a box of grey coal ash for 15 days, then another two weeks in the cellar. The result is a darker, firmer rind and a fruitier, more fragrant taste that comes near Olivet cendré. Frinault sec follows the cendré recipe but keeps ageing in the cellar past four weeks.

Summer and winter are the best seasons for it, since the cheese is more fragrant then, though it can be eaten all year. Serve it with red Chinon or Bourgueil, or with Orléans reds such as Cabernet and Cheverny.