In days gone by

In Auvergne, cheeses are part of the heritage, as much as Romanesque churches and thermal springs. Cheeses are also the most ancient spokespersons of the region since the former Arverne people started making them and the Romans were struck by the quality of the Massif Central cheeses.

Every season gives its originality to the cheeses. The cattle are mainly fed on “natural” grass eaten fresh from the end of spring to autumn. In spring, freshly opened flowers contain a lot of carotene and vitamin A. In summer, they are replaced by serpolet (mother-of-thyme), gentian, liquorice and bilberries. In winter, the grass is scarcer and the nature of the milk changes again. Production linked to the summer pasturing slows down. The animals descend to the valleys again and are fed hay, fodder and cereals (this used to include rye).

Made for centuries in the large farms around Besse, Saint-Nectaire cheese was traditionally laid on rye straw for ripening.

In the Middle Ages, peasants used to pay their lords in “gléo cheese” (rye straw). Then its production area extended beyond the Monts Dore as far as the Aubrac.

In the 16th century, the development of farms together with the transhumance that characterises the Aubrac and Cantal Mountains meant that farmers opted for larger sized cheeses, combining the production of “gléo” during the winter (when less milk was available) and “jouhanal” (an ancestor of Cantal cheese) with the greater milk production of the summer. This means that the production areas for both cheeses still overlap to this day, Saint-Nectaire and Cantal both being made from raw pressed curds.

Between 1700 and 1800, other French regions found out how to improve their cheese production and foreign cheeses took a sizeable share while Auvergne cheeses became unfashionable.

Then, the 18th century saw an attempt to make Gruyère in the Mont Dore area, spurred by Lieutenant Trudaine who attracted Swiss cheese makers there. The Auvergne peasants’ contempt for Gruyère caused the Swiss to leave. For their part, producers managed to improve the making of Saint-Nectaire.

During the wars from 1792 to 1815, young Auvergnat soldiers discovered Holland. On their return, they put into practice the cheese-making methods they had found there. A committee of Auvergnat cheese-makers then went to Holland to perfect the application of the Dutch methods to the making of Saint-Nectaire.

In this way, Saint-Nectaire production improved and increased between 1830 and 1850. From this time, it stabilised at around 1,500 tons a year.

In the first half of the 20th century, production remained 100% farm-based, specific to small and medium-sized farms. At first linked to a self-sufficient economic system in which the production villages –especially in mountain areas– were particularly remote, Saint-Nectaire production decreased for a while, between 1929 and 1950, because of a massive drift from the land and inadequate mechanisation.

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