Gruyère

Gruyère takes its name from the Gruyère district in Fribourg. Monasteries and village dairies in the western Alps were making large, long-keeping cow's-milk wheels centuries ago. The cheese was a way to store the milk of mountain and valley herds. The modern Swiss protection fixes the zone, the raw milk, and the dense texture.

The name was also used beyond that zone, including for French cheeses and for export copies. Some of those cheeses were made with eyes, which added to the confusion with Emmental. The Swiss AOP cheese is the dense one. A holey wheel sold under a similar name is a different product. Aging houses in Switzerland still finish wheels for different ages, from a younger cooking cheese to a long-aged wheel for the table.

Raw cow's milk is set, the curd is cut and cooked, and it is pressed firmly into large wheels. The pressing, and the way the curd is handled, leaves a paste that is solid. A few small openings can appear. Large round eyes are not the goal and are not the mark of quality here. The rind is natural, brown, and hard. Wheels are aged for months. Older designations exist for longer-aged wheels. Summer mountain wheels, made while the herds are on high pasture, are sold as a special case.

The milk and the cellar do as much as the recipe. A wheel from one dairy and one season can taste more of herbs or of broth than the next. That variation is normal inside the protection. An industrial cheese that borrows the name and adds large holes is aiming at a different customer's picture of Swiss cheese. It can still melt. It is not this make.

Young Gruyère tastes nutty, salty, and slightly sweet, with a firm chew. Older Gruyère becomes more savory, sometimes with browned butter, meat broth, or a crystal crunch. The smell of the paste is clean and deep. The rind smells stronger and is not the part you eat for pleasure, though a thin edge of it will not ruin a bite.

A good piece is not bitter. A soapy or fishy note means poor storage. Crystals in an older wheel are a feature of age. A complete absence of flavor usually means a very young copy, or a cheese grated long before it reached the plate. Buy the wedge. Taste it plain before you bury it in a sauce.

Melt it in fondue, classically with other Swiss cheeses, wine, and a little spirit. Grate it over French onion soup, a gratin, a croque, or a plate of vegetables after the dish is hot. Eat an older piece in shards on a board. A younger piece is the better melting cheese. A very old, dry piece is the better eating cheese.

Do not treat it as Emmental. A fondue made only from a mild holey cheese will taste flatter and sweeter. Do not treat a long-aged wheel as the only cheese in a smooth fondue. Mix ages if you need both savor and melt. Comté and Beaufort are the French substitutes when you want a dense, nutty alpine-style wheel. Emmental is the substitute when the recipe actually wants sweetness and eyes.

Swiss Gruyère is made in its western Swiss zone and exported as a major Alpine cheese. In Switzerland it is both a daily cooking cheese and a table cheese. French-speaking kitchens outside Switzerland use it for gratins and onion soup. American and British shops often use the word more loosely.

When the label shows the Swiss protection, you are buying this cheese. When the label only says gruyere and the paste is full of large eyes, you are buying a relative. Both might belong in a meal. Only the dense Swiss wheel matches a Swiss recipe that bothers to name Gruyère rather than Swiss cheese. Emmental, on the next page of this catalog, is the cheese those eyes were pointing at.