Fourmofolies à Ambert, le festival de la fourme d’Ambert – 3 & 4 août 2024
À Ambert, the star is called la Fourme. A small cheese with a great destiny, it invites itself to all tables in France, and proudly displays its AOP. Emblem of an entire territory, it is only fair that it be celebrated as it should be. This year again, the AOP Fourme d'Ambert is the star of the Fourm'idables picnics and the famous Fourmofolies in Ambert on August 3 and 4, 2024. Treat your taste buds to a gourmet break during their summer holidays. Because the AOP Fourme d’Ambert is the sweetest of blues.
Fourmofolies: Ambert celebrates its fourme
Almost everyone loves Fourme d'Ambert. Round to the eye, light on the palate, creamy yet firm, it has an inimitable elegance. The Grande Dame has become over time one of the favorite cheeses of the French. Appreciated by starred chefs, the AOP Fourme d'Ambert deserves its celebration.
Attention foodies! Like every summer, the town of Ambert celebrates its famous blue-veined cheese for a colorful weekend. Thus, on August 3 and 4, the Fourmofolies take over the streets of the city of Ambert for an event under the sign of sharing and conviviality. It is above all an opportunity to enjoy yourself by discovering or rediscovering the AOP Fourme d'Ambert between gastronomy and festivities.
For this, a wood and metal event stand hosts all the taste events. Thus, for the pleasure of the taste buds, we offer you varied tastings. Chefs, including several Toques d'Auvergne, concoct many recipes for you, each more creative than the next.
For the curious, demonstrations and introductions to the production of AOP Fourme d'Ambert teach you the manufacturing stages. Finally, on Saturdays, a stage hosts concerts as well as a show by street artists. And it's not over ! Distinguished guests, exhibitors of local products, activities and other farm visits... They are waiting for you to spice up your summer alongside the softest and creamiest of cheeses.
La Fourme by mountains and valleys
The Fourmofolies also represent a great opportunity to highlight the country of Ambert, its productions and its producers. The latter thus benefit from a privileged moment to make the public discover what the mountain agriculture of Livradois-Forez really is. With its preserved traditions and know-how, its innovations as well.
Because the Fourmofolies want to be an "open-air farm", the event highlights the agricultural world. Demonstrations of Fourme production, tastings, recipes., presence of herds... Local market for a weekend, Ambert also welcomes dozens of exhibitors from our regions.
These two days of festivities punctuate the work carried out all year round by the Syndicat Interprofessionnel de la Fourme d'Ambert (SIFAm) to promote the AOP. Organized on preserved natural sites and pastures, they once again invite gourmets to come as close as possible to this Fourme which never ceases to inspire.
An appetizing program for the Fourmofolies d'Ambert
Pride of its producers and its territory, the Fourme d'Ambert is therefore honored this year on August 3 and 4 during the Fourmofolies. At the initiative of SIFAM (Interprofessional union of the Fourme d'Ambert), this event brings together lovers of the Fourme.
For culinary pleasures, head to the event stand which hosts all the taste events around the Fourme d'Ambert. The producers then offer varied tastings, seasoned with their love of tradition and the passion for their profession. Gourmets will learn how to cook the “great lady with a tender heart” with chefs, including several Toques d'Auvergne. During the weekend, they will concoct many recipes, each more creative than the next.
Demonstrations and introductions to the production of Fourme d'Ambert allow the curious to grasp all the know-how necessary for the creation of this cheese. The Fourmofolies are also a call to stroll, with concerts, brass bands and street artists for the soundscape. Visits to farms, herds of cows, exhibitors of local products, entertainment spice up the celebration around the sweetest and smoothest blue cheeses from Auvergne.
The event is free and open to all, meet on August 5 and 6, 2023 in Ambert for Fourmofolies that promise to be rich in flavors!
Picnics that whet the appetite
Relaxed, casual, a bit old-fashioned but so delicious, the picnic is an ode to the lightness of sunny days. This moment shared in nature has the taste of the freedom of summer vacation! And when it comes to one of Fourm'idables picnics, gastronomy is a special guest. In the preamble of Fourmofolies, an event which highlights the AOP Fourme d'Ambert on the first weekend of August, the meeting takes place at altitude, in the AOP production area, end of July for a sweet tasting under the blue sky.
A culinary and rural concept around the AOP Fourme d'Ambert
When the AOP Fourme d'Ambert revisits the picnic, these are Chefs Toques d'Auvergne who prepare the main course! A tasty program proposed by the Interprofessional Syndicate of Fourme d'Ambert (Sifam) with the Fourm'idables picnics. From sweets to dessert, soft blue-veined cheese is obviously present in the preparations. But the menu also gives pride of place to other delicacies and local productions.
Book your packed lunch online from June 2024 to enjoy the country tasting of la fourme in all its forms.
And as lunch on the grass can be synonymous withrecklessness as well as to relax, the festive atmosphere continues with entertainment: theatrical wanderings, music, wooden games for the youngest. In a spirit of conviviality and sharing, each participant is also invited to bring their own game or musical instrument. The site of Fourm'idables picnics also lends itself to digestive and contemplative hiking.
Fourm'idables picnics: a landscape to be savored
These vast expanses of summer pastures and meadows cover the heart of the geographical area of theAOP Fourme d'Ambert. It is these grasslands that feed the cows whose milk is used to make Fourme, giving it its particular flavor along the way. From the landscape to the Fourme sandwich, there is only one step!
But it is also people and traditions that make the land. The jasseries, traditional farms whose cellar served as a cheese dairy, punctuate the landscape with their discreet presence. They represent allagro-pastoral history inhabitants of Forez and the know-how of making Fourme d'Ambert.
What more grandiose and powerful setting to appreciate to its full extent the mildest of blue cheeses ? A link between gastronomy, landscapes and terroir, the Fourm'idables picnics promise to be a bucolic getaway not to be missed.
Gourmet surprises are being prepared at altitude. You are free to discover them.
A simple cheese with a big destiny
A slate-grey rind, a creamy texture, a full-bodied taste and a hell of a character! Here is the portrait of the queen of the party. She is a native of Hautes-Chaumes, vast spaces of moors and meadows at altitude, the highest point of the Forez mountains. Indeed, since the Middle Ages, the Fourme d'Ambert has been produced on the summer pastures in a pastoral tradition passed down from generation to generation.
Like in the days of old gossip, high-altitude farms whose cellar serves as a cheese dairy. Its production is done with the milk of cows that have grazed in the fragrant and flowery mountain grasslands. The incomparable taste of Fourme d'Ambert, sweet but assertive, comes from this particularly rich filling, as well as gestures repeated and transmitted over centuries of know-how.
Benefiting from a Protected Designation of Origin since 1972, the Fourme d'Ambert is now recognized by gastronomy professionals. Excellent as a platter cheese, it can also be cooked in local dishes or original recipes. A consecration for this little cheese with a long history!
