What French cheese from the Jura region has a horizontal line of ash through its center? The answer is Morbier.
Morbier is a semi-soft cow’s-milk cheese named after the village of Morbier in Franche-Comté. Its defining feature is a thin, continuous black line running horizontally through the middle of each slice. The line was traditionally made with vegetable ash, not mold.
Historically, mountain farmers had too little milk in winter to make a full wheel of Comté. They pressed the evening curd into a mold, covered it with ash to protect it overnight, then added the next morning’s curd. This created the cheese’s two-layer appearance and distinctive center stripe.
Modern Morbier is commonly produced from a single batch of milk, while edible vegetable carbon recreates the traditional line. It is protected by a French AOC and European PDO designation. A common mix-up is confusing it with Comté: both come from the Jura area, but Comté is a firm cooked-pressed cheese and does not have Morbier’s ash stripe.