Archive for July, 2009
-
A few helpers for Mimolette…
Tuesday, July 28th, 2009
At Sainte-Mère, the cheesemakers have millions of helpers working on the maturing Mimolette cheeses. As the cheeses ripen, so cheese mites feed on the fungi that develop naturally on the rind. The mites are completely harmless to humans. Their action develops little pits on the rind, which help to aerate the cheese. The cheeses need [...]
-
Mimolette: a 17th century wartime initiative
Monday, July 27th, 2009
The round Mimolette cheese was an unlooked-for byproduct of hostilities between France and the Low Countries in the 17th century. The people of northern France were passionately attached to Dutch hard cheeses, such as mature Gouda, but these were no longer available while French and Dutch cannons were facing each other across the plains of [...]
-
Keeping cheeses in shape
Sunday, July 26th, 2009
Why is a Mimolette cheese round? To be sure, it comes out of a spherical mould, but as a young cheese, these 3kg cheese balls would soon take on irregular shapes unless they were turned at frequent intervals by attentive cheesemakers. This means once a week while the cheeses are young and once a month [...]
-
What better topping for ice cream?
Tuesday, July 14th, 2009
During the 1950s, the Isigny factory shop – sometimes referred to as the ‘sales shed’ – the summers saw a roaring trade in dairy ice creams for visiting tourists. Nobody quite remembers where the idea came from to top ice creams with Chantilly cream (very light and fluffy vanilla flavoured whipped cream). But it was [...]
-
Médaillon: a new departure for Camembert
Wednesday, July 8th, 2009
In the late 1960s, the traditional Paris cheese and dairy shops (crémiers) were running out of space to hold two or three weeks’ worth of young Camembert cheeses and ripen them on the premises. So the Isigny cooperative found that sales were falling among their key customers. The cheesemakers’ solution was to develop a top [...]
-
Investing in Camembert production
Saturday, July 4th, 2009
Unlike its larger rivals – Nestlé, Gervais and the BSN group that was later to become Danone – the Isigny cooperative did not go into mass-produced yogurt or milk products. Major brands such as Yoplait and Candia grew out of other cooperatives’ work, but at Isigny the cooperative concentrated on adding value to its members’ [...]
