Archive for the ‘cheese’ category
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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, [...]
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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 [...]
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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 [...]
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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 [...]
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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 [...]
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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’ [...]
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Postwar reconstruction
Monday, June 22nd, 2009
As the liberating armies moved on to Caen and Paris, the Isigny dairy farmers returned to developing their cooperative. There were just 28 of the founder members who had survived the war: they were joined by a further 208 new members. As the war drew to a close, the Bessin exceeded a previous 1938 high [...]
