 Claude Rognon (Crosey-le-Petit), Robert Perret (La Ferté), Gabriel Poulet (Orgelet), Bernard Cuinet (Rothonay), Albert Troutet (Frasne), Marcel Donier (Grande-Rivière), Bernard Curt (Nébois), Rémy Debois (Bouverans), Jean-Marie Prin (Chilly-sur-Salins): retirement has come for these cheese makers and there are many others who will soon follow in their footsteps. For the villages concerned, it is no small event to see these characters go who, usually with their wives, have played a key role in the community, sometimes for several decades.
In comparison, for these villages, the antics of certain media personalities pale into insignificance. They leave, and others arrive, to continue one of the most traditional professions in Franche-Comté, a profession which, along with the wood-turner and the specialist wood cutters who remove long thin strips of wood directly from the trees, is always to be found illustrating the tourist guides. Up until 1880, the milk producers took turns in making the cheese.
Gradually, this activity became established in particular locations, as someone local made it their speciality. The profession was born and the creation of the national dairy schools enabled it to develop and progress. It changed little over the following century. In addition to the cheese making, there is an important special relationship that develops between the cheese maker and the president of the fruitière, to such an extent that they are referred to as a “couple”. A system of management has evolved; the cheese makers manage their businesses and negotiate an overall envelope to pay the other employees and operating costs.
The man in white does not do things in half measures, as you can read in the testimonials of three former apprentices (see below). This a profession full of devotion, of children who fell in the vat when they fourteen, and in which the work conditions before the 1980s can hardly be imagined.
The cheese maker of Plains-les-Grands-Essarts in the Doubs, Jean-Luc Favrot sums it up: “A cheese maker does not count the hours that he works”. One works seven days a week, without holidays, and virtually without a break. And one is paid accordingly. Everyone knows that cheese makers earn good money, but that they hardly have any time to spend it. The old joke is that the cheese maker has the fanciest car in the village... but it never leaves the garage!
Things changed in the 1980s. Work conditions improved to everyone’s general satisfaction, rituals gradually disappeared (such as la coulée – the pouring and weighing of the milk) and similar procedures (such as straining using cheesecloth), as the cheese makers joined the farmers and the affineurs in the great movement that made Comté what it is today. Stricter controls over employment appeared in the form of new work contracts and the provision of at least one day of rest during the week. There were complaints from the older members of the profession, but everyone joined in, even if it was felt that a degree of responsibility was being lost (“It won't be long”, warned one cheese maker, before there'll have to be an audit and a decision by the board of directors every time we have to buy a metre of pipe”).
For a study on risks at work in cheese production, Jean-François Rubrecht, a food-processing consultant, visited more than a hundred fruitières. He detected a certain “what’s the use” attitude within the profession. “All the issues that are, for example, related to work conditions are reduced to workers’ rights although this is not necessarily the case and the cheese makers hesitate to raise them for fear of aggravating the situation...”
A general feeling of unrest is brewing, weakening, in particular, the relationship between the cheese maker and the president, who is himself subjected to increasingly complex responsibilities and regulations.
The profession, with its partners, is going through a period of adaptation, in which the younger generations will have to rise to new challenges in order to keep up a profession that remains the lynchpin of the industry, and which the new Comté Decree strengthens in its maintenance of a tradition. The picture of the cheese maker testing the curds by hand remain and will remain symbolic of the nobleness of a profession.
The Cheese maker is a key player. Like the scrum or fly half in rugby, he receives the milk from the farmers, improves it in the best way possible, before passing it on to the affineur, who will be able to convert the try, all the more successfully for everyone having had a chance to express their individual talents while playing as a team.
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