Tomme Crayeuse is a raw-milk cheese from the Savoie region of France. If any of you ever have a chance to try it, TRY IT! It is phenomenal. It is a new recipe, from 1995, by affineur Max Schmidhauser. I want to make cheese like this! Here's what Murray's (where I ordered mine) has to say about it:
This chalky tomme could be just another Tomme de Savoie-wannabe. Produced in Savoie, it's got that dank, mold-dappled rind and the same mountain-fed cow milk, but two stages of aging catapult it into mushroomy epiphany. First, it lounges in the sauna, warm and saturated with humidity to loosen the flesh into marshmallow cream. Then, a visit to a cooler but equally moist cave teases out those earthy, lactic inclinations, preserving an inner core of milky crumble. The final wheel is pure mushroom butter with a rind smattered with gorgeous powdery yellow mold, the result of cellulose in the cows' diet. The intense richness of flavor is deflected by a spicy red Syrah.
I have never heard of a 'sauna' stage in ripening. If any of you have been to the area, and have any insight into it, please let us know. The thing that was so interesting about it (aside from the unbelievable taste) is that it is chalky and unripened in the center, almost like a chaource, but it is a tomme... So...how do they do that?