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CABECOU
Cabécou is produced in seven stages. The goats are milked twice a day, ten months a year. Each goat makes two to three liters of milk per day. Producers then curdle the milk with fermenter and pressure, letting the mixture sit for 24 hours. The curd is then placed in large sacks of tissue to drain for an additional day. Once drained the curds are delicately salted and stirred. This provides the paste for the cylindrical molds, a swift molding and unmolding process using large metal sheets with circular cutouts. Once rounded, Cabécou is stored on refrigerator sheets at about 10 degrees Celsius. The AOC label is affixed once the batch reached the desired age (10 days to months old).
Cabécou
Le Lot is home to the Cabécou, a small round cheese made from creamy non-pasteurized goat's milk measuring 4 to 5 centimeters in diameter and 1.5 centimeters in thickness. The cheese originated in the Aquitaine, named after the Occitan word "cabra/craba" for goat, and is one of the region's oldest and most famous products. Production dates back at least to the 15th Century where the cheese is recorded in a monograph as factor in sharecropping and taxation as a value in the tithe to the Bishop.
The most recognizable variety of the cheese takes its name from a producer association surrounding the cliff city of Rocamadour. Cabécou producers in the area succeeded in ascending to France's Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée (AOC) status in 1996. The appellation area includes all the communes of Causse du Quercy with forty cheese makers shepherding over 13,000 goats. 30 million cheeses Le Lot now boast production of 30 million Cabécou per year (339 tons in farm production and 732 tons in artisan production) sold everywhere in France.
Coloring ranges from snow white to dirty beige depending on the length on maturation. Restaurants and vendors offer Cabécous ripened to different ages. Young Cabécous (10 days to two weeks old) is generally paired with salads or toasts. The stronger taste of aged Cabécou is generally paired with country bread as part of the cheese platter at the end of meals.
Rocamadour's Office of Tourism Offers a tasting map as a guide for a day trip around the areas many cheese producers.
Cabécou
Le Lot is home to the Cabécou, a small round cheese made from creamy non-pasteurized goat's milk measuring 4 to 5 centimeters in diameter and 1.5 centimeters in thickness. The cheese originated in the Aquitaine, named after the Occitan word "cabra/craba" for goat, and is one of the region's oldest and most famous products. Production dates back at least to the 15th Century where the cheese is recorded in a monograph as factor in sharecropping and taxation as a value in the tithe to the Bishop.