Latest news with #HolyCow
Local France
13-05-2025
- Politics
- Local France
French politicians rush to defence of cheese labelled 'bad product'
The controversy is around Comté, the hard cows' milk cheese from the Jura area of eastern France. Despite its popularity - it is the most-eaten AOP cheese in France - Comté came under attack from environmentalist Pierre Rigaux, who told France Inter that Comté has "become a bad product from an ecological point of view". READ MORE: What does the AOP/AOC label on French food and wine mean - and are these products better? He added that the problems stem from intensive dairy farming in the region which result in polluted rivers, and called on people to avoid Comté. His comments naturally sparked a furious reaction from farmers in the eastern Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region, while politicians have also rushed to defend the cheese. The local préfet tweeted: "Ban it? You might as well ban sunsets over the Jura! Let's be serious", adding the hashtag TouchePasAuComté (hands off Comté). Politicians on a national level also got involved , with several calling to "protect' Comté. Right-winger Laurent Wauquiez said that the attempts to limit Comté consumption was "the project of a France without identity or flavour". Green party leader Marine Tondelier released a statement from the party to "set the record straight on Comté", saying: "The Ecologistes party has never asked us to stop eating it, far less ban it." Advertisement The local chapter of the party the Franche-Comté Ecologistes also reiterated their support for the dairy industry, "built on cooperative values and exemplary organisation", while adding that it was "not possible to deny the environmental impact of cattle breeding and cheese dairies, even under the AOP label'. The process of making the highly popular Comté cheese forms a major part of the plot in the award-winning French film Vingt Dieux, which has been released in cinemas in the UK, US and Australia under the title Holy Cow.
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Cheese, sheep and the solar system: 7 events this week
May 1—April showers bring outside events in May. This week brings you birds, sheep, stars and sites. More of an indoors person? There are events for you too. Got an event we should know about? Reach out to features@ Cheese whizzes The New Mexico Cheese Guild is holding fundraiser screenings of "Holy Cow" at the Guild Cinema at noon on Sunday, May 4, and May 25. Tickets for the event are $10, plus fees, and moviegoers have the option of adding on a cheese tasting box for an additional $9.50, at The Guild is located at 3405 Central Ave. NE. You can also catch the film from May 9-May 15 at the Center for Contemporary Arts, 1050 Old Pecos Trail in Santa Fe. Visit for more info. Immersive history "The bomb," an immersive multimedia installation by Smriti Keshari and Eric Schlosser, is coming to the University of New Mexico's Zimmerman Library through May 30. The exhibit explores the history, technology and threat of nuclear weapons. The exhibit is free to attend. Bird's the word Coronado Historic Site manager Wendi Laws will lead a bird walk from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sunday, May 4. Eventgoers will get to experiment with tools to see how bird beaks determine their diet and create bird masks inspired by the site's feathered residents. The event is free for New Mexico residents and qualified individuals, and $7 for nonresidents at The Coronado Historic Site is located at 485 Kuaua Road, Bernalillo. Star powered The Albuquerque Astronomical Society and Rio Rancho Astronomical Society are joining forces to host an Astronomy Day event from 5-10 p.m. Saturday, May 3. The event will include solar observing, a special talk on "NASA Solar Missions" by Jim Greenhouse, space science director at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science, and more. The Rainbow Park Observatory is located at 301 Southern Blvd. NE in Rio Rancho. Visit and for more information. The event is free. Fantastic fibers Bosque Redondo Memorial is hosting a Fiber Fair from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, May 3. Las Arañas Spinners and Weavers Guild will be on hand for live demonstrations and hands-on activities using wool from the site's Navajo-Churro sheep flock. There will also be sheep shearing, ranger talks, workshops and more. Admission is $7 and free for qualified individuals at The Bosque Redondo Memorial at Fort Sumner Historic Site is located at 3647 Billy the Kid Road, Fort Sumner. Walk to remember The 2025 Jane's Walk is set for this weekend, with departures planned for 8:30 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. Saturday, May 3, and Sunday, May 4. This year's walking tours include the Fourth Ward Historic District, Huning Highlands, Raynolds Addition, Highlands, Nob Hill and Parkland Hills Addition. All walks are free and volunteer-led. Visit for more information. Lending a hand Keep Albuquerque Beautiful and Locker #505 are holding the 14th annual Recyclothes from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, May 3. Get a jump on spring-cleaning by bringing your gently used clothing. The event benefits Albuquerque students. The drive will also accept new underwear, new makeup kits, new hygienic products, and new and used toys. Learn more about Locker #505 at Hinkle Family Fun Center is located at 12901 Indian School Road NE (NW corner of parking lot). ---
The Guardian
12-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Holy Cow review – unlikely French teen cheesemaker drama with a big heart
Here's something to tempt the appetites of fans of French cinema and artisan cheeses alike: Holy Cow, the first feature fim from French director Louise Courvoisier, has been a breakout success domestically (it won a prize at Cannes and a couple of Césars, and went on to win over French audiences in their droves). On paper, this tale of a rural teenage delinquent who dreams of glory in the annual comté cheesemaking competition sounds like any number of generic feelgood underdog tales. But there's a knack to making great rural cinema, which boils down to capturing the grit and spit and personality of the place rather than some sun-dappled romantic projection of a simpler life. It helps immeasurably that Courvoisier grew up in the same remote Jura farming community in eastern France where the film is set. It shows in every rough-edged, beer-drenched frame – this is earthy, sweaty, unvarnished film-making with dirt under its nails – and in particular it benefits the casting and direction of the phenomenal, largely nonprofessional actors. Courvoisier's storytelling approach is sensitive but resolutely unsentimental, despite the tragedy that underpins this coming-of-age story. Teenage deadbeat Totone (Clément Faveau) spends his summer drinking, fighting, chasing girls and tooling around on battered dirt bikes. Then his alcoholic, widowed father dies, leaving Totone responsible for a failing farm and his seven-year-old sister. Totone latches on to the cheese competition, with its generous prize money, as a quick-fix solution to his predicament. But to make cheese, he decides to steal milk from young farmer Marie-Lise (Maïwene Barthelemy). Ultimately, the comté is beside the point: the nourishment in this terrific, big-hearted drama comes from Courvoisier's satisfyingly full-blooded characters. In UK and Irish cinemas
Telegraph
11-04-2025
- General
- Telegraph
The best Comté cheeses and the wines to drink with them
Salty delight What keeps the British away is that it often rains during July and August (although with encroaching climate change, less than it used to). But without that rain, you would not have the lush pastures which cover the high Jurassian plateaus, lovingly showcased in the film. And without that grass to feed the cows, you would not have the nutty, salty delight that is comté cheese. In Orgelet, there's a fromagerie which sells some of the best comté in the local area (and fictionalised in Holy Cow). If you don't arrive at 8am on the dot, you're liable to wait in an ever-lasting queue while the locals buy kilo after kilo of reasonably priced cheese – young, fruité or more mature. At Christmas, they bring out the 24-month or even 36-month aged rounds. The quantities sold are so vast that there is a special cutting machine to speed up the slicing of the 40kg wheels. Each tranche is then lovingly wrapped in the metallic paper that is the cheese's satisfying hallmark. No poxy 100g purchases here – an average slab of mature cheese is about 500g, which in my village would set you back around eight euros. When they were younger, my children enjoyed watching this – so much so that once in Waitrose, when my then 10-year-old son spotted the woman at the deli counter cutting the cheese badly, he whispered to me: 'What's the lady doing to the comté, Mummy?' In the unusual event the shop is closed (it's even open on a Sunday morning, when the church bells ring to entice the lapsed Catholics to church), there's a cheese vending machine outside where you can buy ready-cut slabs. Incidentally, Orgelet is also the birthplace of La Vache Qui Rit, although production now takes place in nearby Lons-le-Saunier. The maturing process Comté is growing in popularity in the UK – sales are up 40 per cent at Tesco. But it seems that popularity has yet to translate into tourism in the region. That's a shame: there are co-operative and family-run fruitières dotted all over the countryside where wheel after wheel of comté is made. As the film shows, the delicate process involves heating the finest fresh Montbéliarde cow milk in giant copper vats, adding rennet and curdling the milk, separating the curds from the whey and then moulding the curds into rounds. When they are firm enough, wheels are transported into the Jura mountains to be aged for at least four months in vast cellars in the Napoleonic Fort des Rousses or the Fort Saint-Antoine, close to the Swiss border. Some are also aged in the town cellars of Poligny, which is known as the capital of Comté. It's a great place to do some concentrated cheese tasting in the shops that line the town square, while the Maison du Comté museum offers insight into the production process. But thankfully these days you don't have to go all that way to Jura to get a taste of this delicious fromage (or even make the schlep to Borough Market in London, where it's been sold for over 20 years). Most mainstream supermarkets now stock it pre-sliced (albeit not in that lovely crinkly paper), or at the deli counter. Here, our food expert Xanthe Clay picks her favourites, and wine writer Victoria Moore chooses the best wines to drink with it.
The Guardian
09-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Holy Cow review – warmhearted story of smalltown teen turned champion cheesemaker
It doesn't get more French than a drama about cheese. Holy Cow is the feature debut from director (and part-time farmer) Louise Courvoisier; it's a social-realist drama that is the opposite of grim and miserable in its warm and often funny telling of a coming-of-age story about a teenager from a struggling family of comté-makers in the remote region of Jura. Courvoisier warms things up nicely with her idealism and optimism, and she gets brilliant performances from her non-professional cast, cows included. The opening scene features a calf sitting in the driver's seat of a car staring out of the window. Newcomer Clément Faveau (a poultry farmer in real-life) plays 18-year-old Totone, first shown at a country fair so drunk that he jumps on a table and strips naked. Totone lives with his dad, a cheesemaker who drinks heavily, and his wise seven-year-old sister; no one ever mentions a mum. Totone gets small-town kicks with his mates, riding around on mopeds getting drunk, until something awful happens. Left alone to look after his sister, Totone comes up with a daft get-rich-quick scheme to make €30,000 in a comté competition. How hard can it be to knock out a prize-winning wheel? Faveau gives an amazingly subtle performance; Totone doesn't say much but his fragility and complexity are all there, humour too in the little shrug of a shoulder. Also terrific is Maïwene Barthelemy, as a teenage dairy farmer Totone falls in love with – and steals from. In what might be the most tender line of the film, she tells Totone, not unkindly: 'Stop snivelling and pull your finger out.' Holy Cow is sentimental in the best of ways, with its warmth and hope in human nature. After watching the intensive labour of the cheese-making scenes you may also complain less about handing over a fiver for a little chunk of comté. Holy Cow shows at UK and Irish cinemas from 11 April.
