Cantal is a pressed cow's-milk cheese from the Auvergne, made in large cylinders, and a protected name. It is one of the old named cheeses of France.
Young Cantal is mild and a little tangy. Older Cantal is firmer and sharper. The logic is closer to cheddar than to a bloomy cheese. Three ages are sold: young, middle, and old. Salers is a related Auvergne cheese with stricter rules, not another name for the same wheel.
History
The high country of the Auvergne has made a large pressed cow's-milk cheese for a very long time. Cantal is among the oldest named cheeses in France. The form is a tall cylinder, practical for a cheese that had to be sturdy. The region kept the method while softer cheeses elsewhere in France became famous for rind and smell.
Salers sits beside it in the same landscape. Salers is a raw-milk farm cheese of the summer pastures, with its own name and tighter rules. Cantal is the broader protected cheese, made in more than one season and sold at more than one age. Treating the two names as synonyms muddles a real difference. Truffade, the Auvergne dish of potatoes and fresh or young tome of Cantal, is the regional cooked use. It is older in spirit than the ski-resort gratins of Savoie.
How it is made
The curd is pressed, allowed to rest as a tome, then milled, salted, and pressed again into the large cylinder. That double working is the distinctive method. It is a cousin, in spirit, to the way cheddar is milled and salted, which is why the finished cheese can remind a British or American eater of cheddar more than of Brie.
Age is part of the label. Jeune is the young cheese, souple and mild. Entre-deux is the middle age, more flavor and a firmer paste. Vieux is the old cheese, harder and sharper. This page does not pin those words to a number of days, because the shopping fact is the word itself. A young cylinder and an old one are both Cantal. A recipe has to say which.
Taste
Young Cantal tastes of milk, butter, and a light tang, with a moist chew. Middle age brings a nuttier, more savory note. Old Cantal is drier, saltier in effect, and sharper, sometimes with a bite that cheddar eaters recognize. The rind is natural and hard. The paste is even, not veined and not washed into a sticky orange coat.
A sound cheese smells clean and buttery, then more cellar-like as it ages. Bitterness and a rancid edge are faults. A complete lack of tang in a cheese sold as vieux means the age word is optimistic. Trust the texture. If it bends like a young cheese, cook with it as a young cheese.
In the kitchen
Melt young or middle Cantal into truffade and other potato dishes, or into a simple sauce and a sandwich. Eat old Cantal in pieces, or grate it. On a board it behaves like a firm British territorial cheese: good with bread, an apple, and butter. Choose the age the way you would choose mild or sharp cheddar.
Do not buy vieux for a smooth potato puree and expect it to vanish into the dish. It will stay in savory pieces, which can be good and is not the young-cheese effect. Do not substitute Brie. A young cheddar is the practical substitute for young Cantal. An aged cheddar is the practical substitute for vieux. Salers, if you find it, is the substitute when you wanted the stricter summer farm cheese of the same mountains.
Around the world
Cantal is made in the Auvergne and eaten across France as a sturdy pressed cheese, less famous abroad than Brie or Camembert and more useful in a hot kitchen. The Auvergne uses it as a daily cheese. Export tends to send the wheels that a cheese shop can age and explain.
Outside France, people often meet it only if a shop is serious about French cheese. A recipe that says Cantal jeune wants the melting age. A recipe that says vieux wants the sharp age. If the recipe says only Cantal, look at the dish. Potatoes and sauces point toward the younger cheese. A board points toward the older one.