Mariette was the daughter of a cheese maker at Banon. She would always share sharp white patties made of goats’ milk wrapped in dry of a brown leaves that she brought from her family’s farm.
Traditionally, the cheese is wrapped in chestnut leaves and tied with raffia or straw to keep it fresh through the long winters. After maturing for a couple of weeks, the little rounds of white cheese are washed with a local eau-de-vie (firewater) before being wrapped in the leaves. It’s a lovely creamy cheese with a pronounced woody flavour.
Tome de Provence is the simple country goat’s cheese of this region, which would once have been made by the shepherd’s wife at home. She would add enough rennet to curdle in around an hour, a process adapted for quick cheese making in hot summer temperatures. This too is creamy and delicious with fresh fruit.
In The Lantern, Bénédicte, younger of the two sisters whose family lived at the hillside hamlet for generations, travels up into the higher mountains of Provence to work in the lavender fields, where she meets the cheese maker’s daughter.
And here is the hill-top village of Banon
