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This page contains an archive of all entries posted to 365 Cheeses in the France category. They are listed from oldest to newest.
England is the previous category.
Germany is the next category.
Many more can be found on the main index page or by looking through the archives.
© 2008 Kirk Samuels
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France Archives
Eating mold can be a tricky thing. There is a fine blue line between a perfectly ripe cheese and one that has gone on to wilder pastures. Cheese is a living food--not the kind with a heartbeat but one that ages and changes and goes through a life cycle. I tasted the cheese I'm writing about today, Fourme d'Ambert au lait cru, twice. Not different pieces either but the same chunk. Each time was at a different stage of the cheese's life and a vastly different experience.
The name is a little pretentious if you don't know French. "Fourme" comes from the Latin word for "form", a in which the cow's milk curds were held or pressed. The Italian word for cheese itself, "formaggio", has the same origin. In some French dialects "fourme" simply means cheese. So Fourme d'Ambert is cheese that originated in the town of Ambert. "Au lait cru" means "from raw milk" or unpasteurized. It is a blue cheese, a moldy molded cheese of France.
Fourme' d'Ambert is often called French Stilton. The grayish-green veins of blue mold run thick throughout. When I bought it, the cheese was cut to order (a good sign) and wrapped in cheese paper instead of plastic (a very good sign). When I opened it the next day after bringing the cheese to room temperature for an hour the texture was moist but still crumbled when cut. Spread on a cracker it was creamy and sweet yet pungent with the blue cheese flavor. Strong but not overpowering. It was a delicious cheese. My fiancée Fleming and I ate half of it then I wrapped it in plastic and returned it to the refrigerator.
Three days later I took the cheese and a few crackers with me to work for my lunch. By the time I unwrapped the cheese it had been at room temperature for a few hours. The smell, fungal and overpowering, almost knocked me out my chair. This was not the same cheese I had eaten days before. Undeterred by the pungency I cut of a chuck and spread it on a cracker. Even before it reached my mouth I could feel the fumes of something--mold maybe--entering my nose. The creaminess and sweet milk flavors were gone, consumed by the living cultures that had taken over. I ate the last of it but it left a bad taste in my nose and mouth.
Lesson: Cheese or any great food product must be taken care of properly and prepared and served at the peak of ripeness or freshness. Buying in bulk, even a bulk of two servings, may be fine for some ingredients, but not all and especially not some really great cheeses.
Name: Fourme D'Ambert Au Lait Cru
Type of Milk: Cow, Unpasteurized
Type: semi-soft
Produced in: France
Date Produced: Unknown
Date Purchased: 10/23/2006
Date Eaten: 10/24/2006, 10/30/2006
Purchased Where: United States, North Carolina, Chapel Hill, A Southern Season
Price: $9.99/lb.
Port Salut is what I call a breakfast cheese. Soft, mild, inexpensive but still fresh tasting, it is not a great cheese but it is a great way to start the day. I love a slice with toast and jam (raspberry is my favorite).
Port Salut has a distinctive orange rind beneath an orange paper label. This is edible (the rind, not the paper) but don't. Stick to the white, milky soft cheese. The name comes from the trappist abbey of Notre Dame du Port du Salut (Our Lady of the Port of Salvation). I don't think this cheese will get you into heaven but it will keep you satisfied until lunch.
Name: Port Salut
Type of Milk: Cow, Pasteurized
Type: semi-soft
Produced in: France, Brittany
Date Produced: Unknown
Date Purchased: 11/04/2006
Date Eaten: 11/08/2006
Purchased Where: United States, North Carolina, Raleigh, Whole Foods
Price: $7.99/lb.
There's a story about how St. Marcellin, a cheese from a remote region of France, became popular, at least as popular as French cheeses go.
The dauphin, the prince who would be King Louis XI, was out hunting in his lands in southeastern France called the Dauphiné. (Incidentally "dauphin" literally means "dolphin" and goes back to a guy named Guy VIII, the French count of Vienne who had dolphins on his coat of arms.That has nothing to with cheese except that dolphins are mammals and might produce a wonderfully rich dolphin cheese if you could find a short stool to milk them.) The prince got lost in the woods and was attacked by a bear. Two local woodsmen rescued the prince and brought him back to their cabin in the woods where he was revived by peasant bread and local cheese. The prince recooperated and never forgot the two men whom he later gave lands and title nor the cheese called St. Marcellin that afterward became famous throughout the land.
The cheese is soft and when brought to room temperature, runny. Sold in a small ceramic pot St. Marcellin is wonderful. I reuse the pots in my kitchen for mise-en-place. The flavor is nutty and slightly fungal, slightly acidic, but very creamy.
Per pound the price of St. Marcellin seems high but it is I bought my 100g (~1/4 lb.) crock for $4.99. Plenty to serve a party of four. Unless they're really hungry. Or French.
The only way I eat this cheese is on a fresh baguette. Incredible.
Name: St. Marcellin
Type of Milk: Cow, Pasteurized
Type: soft
Produced in: France
Date Produced: Unknown
Date Purchased: 11/17/2006
Date Eaten: 11/18/2006
Purchased Where: United States, North Carolina, Raleigh, Whole Foods
Price: $22.45/lb.
I searched through every book I have on cheese but couldn't find any reference to Rocastin or Berger or any form of Le Berger de Rocastin. That is telling.
Berger means "shepherd" in French. Rocastin is made from sheep's milk, creamy smooth, and sold in neat little triangles. Other than that it is not really an interesting cheese. The flavor is not strong and the texture seems too processed, maybe too pasteurized. Not awful but I don't think I will buy it again.
Name: Berger de Rocastin
Type of Milk: Sheep, Pasteurized
Type: soft
Produced in: France
Date Produced: Unknown
Date Purchased: 11/17/2006
Date Eaten: 11/18/2006
Purchased Where: United States, North Carolina, Raleigh, Whole Foods
Price: $16.99/lb.
"Ow, we want the funk.
Give up the funk.
Ow, we need the funk.
We gotta have that funk."
-George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic
Here is a cheese with funk. You will either love it or ask that it be removed from the room while you have the whole house fumigated to remove its foul stench. I lean toward the love side. My fiancée Fleming leans toward the hazmat suit.
Petit Munster Géromé, "little Gerry" to his friends, is a complex cheese with complex flavors. Others have described it as “earthy” “with a strong farmyard aroma”. That is a polite way to put it. I can do little to fully describe it other than say it is reminiscent of certain bodily fluids.
The outer rind is an orangey slick paste that surrounds a four-inch disk. Inside is the pale yellow cheese that packs a wicked punch. I have found that many of the ripened cheeses have a noxious odor immediately after unwrapping them. Let them sit unwrapped for 10 to 15 minutes and let them breathe out this unpleasantness. Little Gerry still holds on to other odors but these can be your friends if you don't mind having French friends who smell like they never shower. Cut out a small wedge and spread it on some fresh bread. I enjoyed the complexity of flavors. Fleming said it started out good but had an evil finish.
Be bold and give it a try!
Name: Petit Munster Géromé
Type of Milk: Cow, Pasteurized
Type: Soft
Produced in: France, Jean Rousset Fromager
Date Produced: Unknown
Date Purchased: 11/17/2006
Date Eaten: 11/18/2006
Purchased Where: United States, North Carolina, Raleigh, Whole Foods
Price: $17.99/lb.
Comté is a delicious cheese from eastern France. It is a French Gruyère which is to say, a French Swiss Cheese. Comté has wonderful unique flavors of the Gruyère family, that sharp twang of Swiss that tingle the roof of your mouth. Nice nutty flavors. Center cuts are the best value. Look for only two of the six faces to have inedible rind. I found it on sale for the holidays so look for it in your local food marts.
Name: Comté or Comte or Gruyère de Comté
Type of Milk: Cow, Unpasteurized
Type: semi-hard
Produced in: France, Franche-Comté
Date Purchased: 12/04/2006
Date Eaten: 12/05/2006
Purchased Where: United States, North Carolina, Raleigh, Whole Food
Price: $10.99/lb.
The first thing you notice about Morbier is the line throught the middle? What is it? It's not a blue-gray mold found in the bleu cheeses. It is a layer of ash. Ok, so what's the deal with ash?
Well, Morbier comes from the eponymous French village in Franche-Comté and traditionally was made in two stages. The first was from morning milk and the second was from the evening milking. To protect the morning cheese from flies throughout the day, a layer of ash was put on top. The ash has little or no flavor. The phrase "au lait cru" indicates the cheese is made from raw, unpasteurized milk.
Morbier has a distinct appearance and pleasing flavor. You taste the rawnees of the milk without it being too funky or strong. Nice creaminess and bite. A wonderful cheese.
Name: Morbier Au Lait Cru
Type of Milk: Cow, Unpasteurized
Type: semi-soft
Produced in: France, Franche-Comté, Morbier
Date Purchased: 12/08/2006
Date Eaten: 12/19/2006
Purchased Where: United States, North Carolina, Chapel Hill, A Southern Season
Price: $/lb.
Yes, it LOOKS like brie. No, it is not brie. Yes, in many ways, especially appearance, it is very similar to brie. No, if you mistake it for brie as most people will do I will not throw a hissy fit(I'm not sure I could tell which was which in a strictly visual lineup). Fromage d'Affinois is a little softer and creamier than a brie of the same age, due mainly to the extra cream added to enrich this flavorful cheese. We sampled it alongside several other cheeses, one being the triple cream Explorateur. And yes, triple cream is creamier than double, but Fromage d'Affinois holds it own. Spread it on a great cracker or some fresh baguette.
Name: Fromage d'Affinois
Type of Milk: Cow, Pasteurized
Type: soft ripened, double cream
Produced in: France
Date Purchased: 12/22/2006
Date Eaten: 12/23/2006
Purchased Where: United States, North Carolina, Chapel Hill, A Southern Season
Price: $/lb.
Steve Jenkins put it perfectly in his essential cheese book, Cheese Primer, "Explorateur is to cheese what Champagne is to wine." Explorateur is ultra-decadent. This triple-cream cheese oozes creaminess and effervesce. The tangy, mushroomy outer white mold plays perfectly with the buttery, light interior. It pairs well with Champagne. A brilliant cheese!
The name comes from the first United States satellite in space, Explorer I, launched in the 1950s shortly before the cheese was developed.
Name: Explorateur
Type of Milk: Cow, Pasteurized
Type: Soft Ripened
Produced in: France, Petit Morin
Date Purchased: 12/22/2006
Date Eaten: 12/23/2006
Purchased Where: United States, North Carolina, Raleigh, Whole Foods
Price: $9.99 for 9 oz.(255g)
Tomme Aydius is a farmhouse goat's milk cheese from the French Pyrenees named for the small town of Aydius.The cheese has a pasty pale color often with odd shapes interior air holes but rich buttery nut flavors. Though it is made from unpasteurized goat milk it does not have a strong goat's milk flavor. If I didn't know I might mistake it for a cow's milk cheese. Tomme means "cheese" in regional French and this tomme has a granular texture like parmesan of the outer edges but the interior is softer and more elastic.
A delicious cheese.
Name: Tomme Aydius or Tomme d'Aydius or Tomme de chèvre d'Aydius
Type of Milk: goat's, unpasteurized
Type: semi-hard
Produced in: France, Pyrenees
Date Purchased: 12/27/2006
Date Eaten: 12/31/2006
Purchased Where: United States, North Carolina, Chapel Hill, A Southern Season
Price: $15.99/lb.
Saint André is not for anyone scared of fat. It's a triple cream cheese like Explorateur, made from cow's milk enriched with whole cream giving it a butterfat content of at least 75%. That sounds pretty darn good to me. Saint André taste darn good to me too. With its white bloomy rind Saint André resembles brie and it is in the same family, though it is the fat rich uncle to the light young relative.
The name is French for Saint Andrew but refers more to a French administrative region, Saint-André, than the patron saint of Scotland.
Name:Saint André or Saint-André or St. André
Type of Milk: cow's, pasteurized
Type: soft
Produced in: France
Date Purchased: 12/27/2006
Date Eaten: 12/31/2006
Purchased Where: United States, North Carolina, Chapel Hill, A Southern Season
Price: $12.99/lb.
The name "fougerus" makes me think of the French word for "werewolf" -- "loup-garou"-- as they sound nearly the same. Like a werewolf, Brie Fougerus wears a bit of a disguise. Decorating a rather ordinary looking wheel of Brie cheese are green fern fronds from which the name is derived ("fougére" is French for "fern"). When brought to the peak of ripeness or affinage, this Brie will begin to ooze at room temperature and has a smooth buttery finish with a hint of mouldy twang. Really a delcious cheese!
Name: Brie Fougerus or Fougerus or Le Fougerus or Le Fougéru
Type of Milk: cow's, unpasteurized
Type: soft
Produced in: France, Ile-de-France
Date Purchased: 12/27/2006
Date Eaten: 1/11/2007
Purchased Where: United States, North Carolina, Chapel Hill, A Southern Season
Price: $16.99/lb.
Would you like to sample one of the finest cheeses produced by France, a raw cow's milk, young soft ripened cheese from the historic mountain of gold? For a taste of the legendary cheese, Vacherin Mont D'Or, you will have to leave the United States. Vacherin and all unpastueurized cheeses soft cheeses are prohibited from import into the U.S. To fill the void left by that ban comes l'Edel de Cleron, a pasteurized version of Vacherin, sometimes referred to by cheese snobs as "faux Vacherin". There is nothing faux about htis cheese. Though it may not be made from raw milk, it has a delcious flavor not to be missed.
First glance at the cheese reveals two things: it is a round white mould covered disk ("Ah, Brie!" many will say) and the ring of woody bark that surrounds it. Unlike Brie, l'Edel de Cleron has a more complex flavor. Many bries sold in the United States taste ultra-pasteurized, heating to high temperatures for short bursts of time to kill any microorganism within regardless of its desirability to flavor. The wood on the outer rind is red spruce known in French as a "sangle", meant to impart a woodland intensity to the cheese. While not permeating to the center, the wood does give the cheese closest to it a slightly smoky, slightly piney flavor. Do not eat the wood and do not chew on it either unless you are a beaver.
Name: L'Edel de Cleron or Edel de Cleron
Type of Milk: cow's, pasteurized
Type: soft
Produced in: France
Date Purchased: 12/27/2006
Date Eaten: 12/31/2006
Purchased Where: United States, North Carolina, Chapel Hill, A Southern Season
Price: $18.99/lb.
I read someone describe Doux de Montagne as "French Havarti". That is an overstatement but the cheeses share some aspects. Both are made from cow's milk, usually pasteurized. Both have a pale yellow cream color. Both are soft with small air holes. The very word "doux" means "soft" or "sweet" in French.
If you find a Doux de Montagne in its whole, uncut state it will be a round ball with a dark maroon wax rind. The flavor is more complex than Havarti, more buttery, richer. Not a stellar performer but it can support more powerful cheeses on an evening's cheese course.
Name: Doux de Montagne
Type of Milk: cow's, pasteurized
Type: semi-soft
Produced in: France, Pyrenees
Date Purchased: 12/27/2006
Date Eaten: 12/31/2006
Purchased Where: United States, North Carolina, Chapel Hill, A Southern Season
Price: $12.49/lb.
I have to confess that I sat on this cheese for a while. Not literally of course, but the time between when I purchased it and when I first tried it was well over a week and a half. What started our as a light yellow cheese with a white rind, the Tomme de Savoie became a rich gold with a dark, black and gray exterior. Cheese people call this process of aging cheese to perfect ripeness, affinage. In this case the results were good.
The first whiff after unwrapping this tomme was a bit harsh. Very much ammonia-smelling. I let it air out for 30 minutes and the odious odor had evaporated. The outer rind was still overpowering to eat in great amounts but small strips of it surrounding the healthy inner cheese were fabulous, reminding me of a master sushi chef who can dissect a posionous blowfish so that he leaves just enough of the fatal toxin to make your throat tingle.
A "tomme" in French is any small round farmhouse cheese and the full name of these cheeses usually ends with the town or region of its origin. In this case, the Haute-Savoie region of France. It is a pretty standard cheese on restaurant cheese plates and deservedly so. Well worth finding.
Name: Tomme de Savoie
Type of Milk: cow's, unpasteurized
Type: semi-hard
Produced in: France
Date Purchased: 1/11/2006
Date Eaten: 1/24/2006
Purchased Where: United States, North Carolina, Chapel Hill, A Southern Season
Price: $11.99/lb.
The French gastronome, Brillat-Savarin, called Époisses "roi des fromages", "king of cheeses". Though not the sole crown of European cheeses, Époisses deserves to sit on a throne. When sold in Europe this cheese is produced from raw cow's milk but the version for sale in the U.S. is pasteurized. This process kills some of the flavor but there is still plenty to go around.
The big argument I find when reading about this and other washed rind cheeses is "When is it at its peak?" Affinage is the French term for aging cheeses to their best ripeness, but when that precise moment occurs is a matter of taste. Époisses starts out semi-firm but softens with age to the point of runniness. Wait too long and the beneficial forces of bacteria that aided in the process turn against the cheese and leave it unedible. Some prefer the cheese soft but still a little firm but as John Cleese's character says in The Cheese Shop sketch, "I like it runny."
The cheese produced by the Berthaut company comes in a niffty wooden round box.
The rind gets its orange color from being washed with Marc de Bourgogne, a distilled pomace wine of Burgundy.
This is a great cheese! I cannot wait for my next trip to Europe to try the unpasteurized variety.
Name: Époisses or Époisses AOC or L'Époisses or Époisses de Bourgogne or Epoisses
Type of Milk: cow's, pasteurized
Type: semisoft
Produced in: France, Burgundy
Date Purchased: 2/13/2007
Date Eaten: 2/15/2007
Purchased Where: United States, North Carolina, Chaple Hill, A Southern Season
Price: $13.99 a piece
Coming on the heels of a phenomenal French cheese, Époisses, Roucoulons has its work cut out for it. In lesser company it might shine but in the brillance of a far better cheese it is hard to find its strong points.
Roucoulon is a bloomy rind, pasteurized cow's milk cheese. The name comes from the French verb "roucouler" meaning "to coo or to whisper lovingly." ("Roucoulons!" -- "Let us whisper lovingly!") The wrapping features a big heart and two love birds. Kind of dopey.
Compared to most cheeses Roucoulons is not bad at all. I recently had some Wal-Mart brie and compared to it Roucoulons is a blue ribbon winner. The flavor is pleasantly mushroomy and when sampled I don't think it has yet reached its peak of ripeness.
There are better cheeses out there but you can do worse.
Name: Roucoulons
Type of Milk: cow's, pasteurized
Type: semi-soft
Produced in: France, Franche-Comté
Date Purchased: 2/13/2007
Date Eaten: 2/15/2007
Purchased Where: United States, North Carolina, Chapel Hill, A Southern Season
Price: $9.99 a piece
Cantal is one of the oldest cheeses of France going back to pre-Roman Gaul. The Roman historian Pliny the Elder mentions it in his Historia Naturalis. Despite its age and heritage Cantal is a deliciously simple cheese. Its flavor is subtle yet satisfying. Not too sharp. Not too strong. Not too salty. Just the right thing for a farmer's lunch or a midafternoon snack. A great value too.
An unpasteurized version is alos availalbe and supposedly has stronger flavors. I will seek it out and report back.
Name: Cantal or Fourme du Cantal or Cantal Salers
Type of Milk: cow's, pasteurized
Type: semi-hard
Produced in: France, Auvergne
Date Purchased: 2/13/2007
Date Eaten: 2/15/2007
Purchased Where: United States, North Carolina, Chapel Hill, A Southern Season
Price: $9.99/lb.
I don't know what Saint Agur is the patron saint of, but if it is soft creamy blue cheeses he was a good choice for the job. The eponymous cheese is a member of the gorgonzola family, a rich creamy French blue veined cheese that has become one of my favorite blues. I couldn't stop eating it. The buttery cheese is a perfect balance to the sharpness of the blue mold. I ate almost an entire baguette with this awesome cheese.
As a side note I believe the saint in question is the prophet Agur of the Old Testament who supposedly wrote the 30th chapter of Proverbs which has a lot to say about eating and sin.
Verse 8: Remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me.
Verse 20: Such is the way of an adulterous woman; she eateth, and wipeth her mouth, and saith, I have done no wickedness.
Verse 33: Surely the churning of milk bringeth forth butter, and the wringing of the nose bringeth forth blood: so the forcing of wrath bringeth forth strife.
Name: Saint Agur or Saint-Agur or St. Agur
Type of Milk: cow's, pasteurized
Type: semi-soft, blue
Produced in: France, Auvergne
Date Purchased: 2/13/2007
Date Eaten: 2/15/2007
Purchased Where: United States, North Carolina, Chapel Hill, A Southern Season
Price: $16.99/lb.
The name makes me think of a large Finnish bird but in fact Etorki is a cheese from France. Some versions add cow's milk to the traditional sheep's milk, but the one I sampled was pure sheepy goodness. Alongside other traditional French cheeses Etorki stands out as black sheep. Its flavor resembles cheeses of northern Italy, Switzerland and Holland. If you're serving a cheese plate of French cheeses, throw in a little Etorki for variety. You won't be disappointed.
Name: Etorki
Type of Milk: sheep's, pastuerized
Type: semi-hard
Produced in: France
Date Purchased: 2/13/2007
Date Eaten: 2/15/2007
Purchased Where: United States, North Carolina, Chapel Hill, A Southern Season
Price: $16.99/lb.
The French epicure Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin once compared a meal without cheese to a beautiful woman with one eye. I might compare a meal with the cheese named after Brillat Savarin (pronounced "bree-ya sav-a-ran") to a beautiful woman with all her body parts intact, enhanced to perfect proportions. Like Explorateur and Saint André
, Brillat Savarin is a triple cream, rich and buttery. In a bling taste test I don't know if I could differentiate one from another but I doubt I would care. All are outstanding.
At first glance the cheese appears deceptively solid but as soon as it enters your warm mouth it begins to melt and release its ripe flavors.
Name: Brillat Savarin or Brillat-Savarin or Brillat Savarin, Affinage or Brillat Savarin Affiné
Type of Milk: cow's, unpasteurized
Type: soft
Produced in: France, Ile de France
Date Purchased: 2/13/2007
Date Eaten: 2/15/2007
Purchased Where: United States, North Carolina, Chapel Hill, A Southern Season
Price: $22.99/lb.
It came as either a gift or a mistake. I received a shipment of seven cheeses from an online order at ArtisanalCheese.com although I had only ordered six. The additional cheese was this wonderful French sheep's milk cheese, Carles Roquefort. No note to say they had thrown it in for free but if I remember right, I may have gotten an extra cheese on a previous order too. It was a little less than perfect in appearance. The thin edge of the wedge had been crushed a little, maybe even before shipping. Still it had its charms of appearance. I tasted this cheese, served it with green salad, spread it on warm bread, and enjoyed it immensely. Only when I started to write about it did I find out the retail price for this treasure, $43.00 a pound. Holy blue cows, Batman! That's Wagyu beef prices. When time came to review a Roquefort I may well have paid that amount and bought as small of a piece as would photograph well. It is the granddaddy of amazing blue cheeses. Is it worth $43.00 a pound? Maybe no, but it is worth $10.75 a quarter pound for a blue cheese experience to ground you in great blue cheeses.
Name: Carles Roquefort or Roquefort Carles
Type of Milk: sheep's, unpasteurized
Type: blue, semi-soft
Produced in: France
Date Purchased: 6/16/2007
Date Eaten: 6/20/2007
Purchased Where: United States, online, Artisanal Cheese
Price: $43.00/lb.
Mimolette in its whole form resembles a cantaloupe. In in its sliced form it resembles a sliced cantaloupe. The outer rind is simply dried aged Mimolette cheese that has been fed on by cheese mites. The interior orange color like most orange cheeses comes from the annatto of the Achiote plant. The flavor of this cheese is great. My wife Fleming said "Wow" four times. I counted. It tastes something of a mix between gouda and cheddar. It was aged but not to the point of being dried out. It still had some elasticity.
Name: Mimolette
Type of Milk: cow's, pasteurized
Type: hard
Produced in: France
Date Purchased: 7/19/2007
Date Eaten:7/20/2007
Purchased Where: United States, North Carolina, Raliegh, Whole Foods
Price: $16.99/lb.
Brie is a region of France outside of Paris and cheese produced there is called Brie. Being over 5000 square kilometers in size there are subdivisions of the region and the Brie cheese form. Brie de Nangis hails from the town of Nangis just as Brie de Meaux, perhaps the most famous Brie cheese, comes from the town of Meaux. Most people recognize any white disk of soft yellow cheese as "brie" or "camembert" and they would stand a good chance of identifying Brie de Nangis correctly.
The flavor is buttery and creamy with an earthy, mushroom aroma. Having endured two long voyages, one from France and another from New York to North Carolina, my cheese held up fairly well, suffering only from mild temperature changes and being a few days past its prime.
Name: Brie de Nangis
Type of Milk: cow's, pasteurized
Type: soft, bloomy rind
Produced in: France, Brie, Nangis
Date Purchased: 9/28/07
Date Eaten: /9/30/07
Purchased Where: online, www.artisanalcheese.com
Price: $14.25/lb.
It could be called "Brie de Coulommiers" and people would have an easier time identifying this cheese. Going by only it surname, Coulommiers, after the town in Brie, where it is produced, has all the characteristics of other Brie cheeses: white disk of bloomy rind; buttery, pale yellow center; softening to a gentle ooze as it ages. I was served Coulommiers in a bistro in Denver recently and it was one of the best things I ate that evening, thought that owes more to the quality of the other courses than any inherent qualities of the Coulommiers.
Name: Coulommiers
Type of Milk: cow's, pasteurized
Type: soft, bloomy rind
Produced in: France, Brie, Coulommiers
Date Purchased: 9/28/07
Date Eaten: 9/30/07
Purchased Where: online, www.artisanalcheese.com
Price: $15.25 each
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