Ossau-Iraty is a cheese made from whole sheep’s milk, traditional from Béarn and the Basque Country. This cheese comes in the form of a tomme with generous shapes and a natural rind, maturing will give it a more or less yellow color. To make this good cheese, you need milk, and the main actress of this beautiful gourmet story, the one who takes the top billing, is the sheep.
– Syndicate Ossau-Iraty
Laurent Charron: We don’t produce Ossau-Iraty cheese just anyhow. It is an uncooked pressed cheese with dairy, farm and summer pasture productions.
Three local breeds of ewes: the Manech Tête Rousse, the Manech Tête Noire and the Basco-Béarnaise make us benefit through the cheese, from the great richness of their milk. These ewes are perfectly adapted to the Pyrenean terroir. The relief, the humid climate and the transhumance do not frighten these born mountaineers. Two things that are still important to know: first a diet favoring pasture (where they are very very often) and fodder, supplemented with cereals and sometimes non-GMO oilseeds (cake), and then, it is important for their well-being , to respect a minimum rest period of 100 days, including September and October. During these 100 days they are no longer milked and the production of cheese is stopped.
– Xexili Foix
Laurent Carron was born in Bordeaux in 1965, he grew up in Lormont where he had the immense good fortune to have known and above all to have tasted the famous, the only, the unique, the real Gratton de Lormont from the beautiful Gaudin family. . Bordeaux youth, studies at the Lycée Hôtelier de Talence for a CAP-BEP in cooking, Laurent then works only for a few times in catering. But despite his passion and his gluttony, this beautiful profession of cook is not made for him. By chance and by chance he finds a job as a courier in a travel agency. Sector in which he remained for 26 years and where he finished before my redundancy as branch manager (7 years). Naturally Laurent returned to the catering trades and creamer-cheese maker suited him perfectly. The love of the product, the terroirs, the sharing, the greediness, etc… For 5 years Laurent Charron has been on his own after having worked first for colleagues, and having worked in mass distribution, having written a book, participated in the final of the French creamer-cheese maker cup in 2021 and happily shared his knowledge with future colleagues at the Campus des Métiers de Tours. You can find him on Instagram and Facebook!
