Imagine life in the French Alps in the old days, before refrigerated trucking and good roads. The mountains were too steep, the villages too remote and the growing season too short to make a living growing vegetables. But the pasture was superb. Cows thrived on the lush alpine grasses, producing rich, fragrant milk that could be transformed into cheese. Dairymen with just a few cows would pool their milk to have enough to make large wheels that would last through the long winters.

For the most part, the cheeses of the French Alps are still large-format cow's milk cheeses, such as Beaufort, Comté, Emmental and Abondance. Because most farmers don't have enough cows to make a big cheese every day, these cheeses tend to be made in cooperatives, from the pooled milk of many farms. They are firm cheeses, built to last. A Comté, weighing 120 pounds, can improve for 18 months or more.

If you want to make a cheese capable of extended aging, you have to get the moisture out early. Alpine cheesemakers do that by cutting the curds small, heating the curds, and then pressing the young wheels — all steps designed to expel whey. The result is a durable cheese with a firm, tight texture. Most have no eyes (interior holes) or only a few small ones; the exception is Emmental, with eyes the size of cherries or larger. They form in Emmental because the wheels are aged in a warm room, producing carbon dioxide gas that can't escape.

France has mountains beyond the Alps, of course. In the rugged high-altitude ranges of the Auvergne, in Central France, cheesemakers produce sturdy wheels of Cantal and Salers by slightly different methods than their colleagues in the Alps. But the objective is the same: to create big wheels capable of going the distance.

With their sweet, nutty flavor and superb melting ability, France's mountain cheeses shine in fondue and gratins. They make a ham and cheese sandwich — grilled or not — into a four-star lunch. And just a handful of grated Cantal, with its lingering sour-cream taste, gives week-night casseroles a more sophisticated flavor profile.

See It Made:   Gratin Au Comté
                       Fondue Au Fromage
                       Ham & Cantal Casserole

Cook's Tip: Some cheeses melt smoothly; some make stretchy, molten strings when heated; and some refuse to melt at all. For that reason, cheeses aren't interchangeable in recipes. Most French cheeses fit in the first category; they flow when melted. Acid-coagulated cheeses like fresh chèvre soften a little with dry heat but then get hard if cooked too long. However, chèvre will dissolve smoothly in a cream sauce. To avoid problems with cheese separating or clumping when heated in a sauce, grate the cheese or cut it into small pieces first and add it gradually over low heat, or even off the heat.