Brousse du Rove. Arbovin / wikimedia / 2016 / CC BY-SA 4.0
Brousse du Rove is a fresh, unaged goat’s milk cheese that is very popular in Marseille, France.
It is a very soft cream cheese that melts in your mouth.
Brousse du Rove is made in the small village of Rove (population 4,000 as of 2005), just west of Marseille, France. The milk used is from a breed of goat called the Rove goat. There are no exact regulations as to how the cheese must be made. The milk is heated and coagulated to form a curd; then the curd is beaten, then drained. It is packed into cylinder-shaped plastic containers for sale.
Brousse du Rove can be used in a savoury dish such as an omelette, or treated as a sweet and eaten drizzled with fruit syrup. It is often eaten just sprinkled with sugar.
It has a short shelf life, so sales outside the production area are challenging.
Nutrition
Brousse du Rove fat content: 45%.
Language Notes
A Brousse is a term for soft cheese made in Provence, France, made from sheep or goat’s milk. It may be so soft as to be like a cream cheese, or have more texture to it, like a ricotta. The term “brousse” comes the French words “brousse” / “brousser”, which have several meanings to them. Some feel that the meaning that applies to the cheese is the meaning of “beaten” — but then not all brousse cheeses have their curd beaten. Others feel that the meaning that applies is that of “woods, bush, back-woods” alluding to the sheep or goats wandering about in off the beaten track, hard-scrabble patches of land.
Black Rove Goat. Dirk Beyer / wikimedia / 2004 / CC BY-SA 3.0