While the West has become France’s leading dairy-producing area, other regions are not far behind. From Flanders to the Finistère, Ardennes to the Massif Central, Alsace to Bordeaux, the Vendée to the Lyon hills, Franche-Comté to the Eastern Pyrenees, Picardy to Languedoc or the Loire Valley to Alpes-Maritimes, each kilometre, or nearly, offers...

All in all, there’s plenty of room in France for extensive farming at prices that are still affordable. That’s why farmer Harald van Doremaele left his native Netherlands for Brittany. This French region offered him the means to achieve his farming ambitions, thanks in particular to Safer, a non-profit organization that guarantees affordable land for farmers. Read the...

Lush grass, sea all around, creamy milk, the need to preserve it…  This is how salted butter came about! These days, refrigeration dispenses with the need for this particular conservation process, but still no self-respecting foodie would dream of doing away with those crystals.

Photo credits: Irqua Normandie

In the North, especially in the Thierache area, milk is produced nearly all year round without a break. Here, a wide range of farmhouse cheeses were created and then developed in the 10th century by monks. For example, “craquegnon”, a cheese made in the region in the seventh century, was adopted by monks who renamed it after their village...

Necessity is the mother of invention... To preserve milk when snowed in at high altitudes, mature cheese is a great solution. This is how Comté, Beaufort and Abondance came into being many centuries ago. Their characteristic feature is a period of aging in cellars of the right humidity and temperature.

Poitou became a major goat-farming region after the Saracen invasion. Today, it is France’s largest, accounting for 34% of the national herd and numerous varieties of goat’s cheese, including the famous Chabichou of Poitou, Mothais with its distinctive leaf, or the matured log, the most famous type of goat’s cheese and a best seller...

A climate that alternates between sunshine and rain all year round is perfect for the lush grass and rich vegetation that is paradise to long-horned, black-headed and Manech sheep. This special land holds the secret to Ossau-Iraty cheese and its cousins from the Basque country and Bearn.