Archive for August, 2009
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Cutting mimolette: a hard cheese challenge
Monday, August 31st, 2009
How do you cut a hard cheese like mimolette safely and easily? For anyone behind a cheese counter, cutting veteran specimens of this cheese is at best an art, requiring a certain level of skill and dexterity. For a start, it requires a thick blade with a wedge profile to split the hard orange ball. [...]
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Bread and butter work
Saturday, August 29th, 2009
One of the building blocks of many French meals is a tartine, otherwise known as a piece of bread and butter. Depending on the quality of the bread and the butter used, it can range from simple to sublime. Isigny Sainte-Mère’s master buttermaker, Daniel Courd’homme, makes a point of tasting the butter and cream every [...]
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One Mimolette, up to two years
Saturday, August 29th, 2009
The first 15 days in the life of a Mimolette are vital to ensure it lasts the course. Since this cheese can be ripened for up to two years, it is hardly surprising that the cheesemakers and graders are very careful to follow the technical manual. Between the cheese mould to a special press, the [...]
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The legendary Camembert name
Tuesday, August 18th, 2009
Given the enormous success enjoyed by Camembert, it is hardly surprising that other cheesemakers started to join in. The existing Camemberts had branding, but there was no legally binding description or appellation for the cheese, which sold by thousands across the country. In 1909, Camembert makers joined forces to organise the Syndicat des Fromagers du [...]
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The Camembert legend (3)
Saturday, August 15th, 2009
The Camembert that Marie Harel made would not have had the familar white downy penicillin crust of a modern Camembert. That came later.In 1901, Normandy’s Camembert cheesemakers sought the advice of the Pasteur Insititute in Paris. The scientific answer came back to innoculate the Camemberts with the candidum strain of penicillin. This prevented the subsequent [...]
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The Camembert legend (2)
Friday, August 14th, 2009
Endorsed by the Emperor himself, Camembert could hardly fail to take Paris by storm, as well as many provincial capitals. There was a very real result from these early travels: originally wrapped simply in paper, it rapidly became clear that something more substantial was needed to protect the ripening cheeses on their journey.In the 1890s, [...]
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The Camembert legend (1)
Thursday, August 13th, 2009
There are many legends that date back to the French revolution. However, few are as persistent as the story of Marie Harel and the origins of Camembert cheese.In 1791, religion was excised from the French state and priests were banned. Farmer’s wife Marie Harel sheltered a fugitive priest from Brie, even if she did not [...]
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How to ladle curds for Camemberts (2)
Tuesday, August 11th, 2009
The hot work of ladling curds into Camembert moulds demands skill and dedication, not to mention unflagging stamina to last a shift of heavy work. For years, cheesemakers had dreamed of automating this part of the process, but these dreams were unfulfilled. The 1983 AOC status for Camembert made in Normandy gave a new incentive [...]
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How to ladle curds for Camemberts (1)
Sunday, August 9th, 2009
The key to making a Camembert is the way it is ladled into the mould and how the mould is managed during the crucial first hours. Turn the clock back 20 years or more and the only way to make these little cheeses was to take a vat of fragile cheese curds into a hot, [...]
