Tête de Moine AOP, literally monk’s head, is a cylindrical, smeared semi-hard, unpasteurised cheese weighing around 800 grams. It boasts a very fine consistency, which melts in the mouth. It isn’t cut; instead, it is scraped into fine rosettes using a Girolle cheese curler(Follow link, sold instore!)
By scraping the cheese, the area of the cheese that comes into contact with the air increases. This changes the structure of the cheese and allows the aromatic, gently melting flavour to develop to its fullest. Even the monks in the Bellalay monastery in the Bern town of Jura used to scrape their Tête de Moine AOP with this superior knife. According to tradition, the cheese was used by the monks as currency back in the 12th century.
