Camembert – A Cheese
Created | Updated Oct 22, 2002
Not to be confused with its larger cousin Brie, this soft white cheese in its distinctive round wooden box is as French as ooh-la-la1 and as Norman as Hastings in 1066.
Origin and Governance
Camembert is named for the French Normandy town whose inhabitants claim somewhat dubiously to have 'invented' it during the French Revolution in the late 18th Century, having at some stage fed some to Napoleon and passed it off as their own.
In fact authors Brugerin de Champier and Charles Estienne had referred to the cheeses of the region prior to 1570, whilst geographer Pierre Corneille referred to "the cheeses of Camembert" in 17082. Even the commonly accepted ‘folklore’ tale of Charles-Jean Bonvoust, a priest who in 1790 took sanctuary in the town of Camembert, in return for which he related the recipe to the now-memorialised Marie Harel implies that the cheese had existed previously.
Nevertheless, the bicentennial of this little round cheese was celebrated in 1991, the boxes having been introduced in 1890 by French engineer Ridel, to facilitate transportation.
To guard against anybody fobbing off cheap foreign cheese as proper Camembert, the Syndicat des Fabricants du Véritable Camembert de Normandie (Normandy Camembert Makers Association) was established in 1909. This was backed up by the issuance of "Appellation d'Origine Controlée" legislation by the French Government during the 1980s, and subsequently protected (since 1996) by European Commission Law through Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) legislation.
Manufacture
Making Camembert is as labour-intensive as cheese-making gets, but the end-product is ready in about three weeks, a relatively quick turn-around in the world of classic cheese manufacture.
Day 1
Heat raw fresh milk from Norman cows to slightly below, but (Zut Alors!) never above, 37°C (body temperature or thereabouts).
Pour milk into large vats in a warm room.
Add natural rennet 3 and the curdling process will ensue.
Ladle the curds 4 , by hand, into the individual cheese-moulds. Each cheese-mould should take five ladle passes to fill.
Allow to drain and flip over.
Day 2
Move these fledgling cheeses from the warm room into the cooler salting room.
Shake dry salt onto the outside of each cheese.
Apply spores of the mould penicillium camemberti to the outside surface of each cheese.
Over the next few weeks, the mould will add flavour by encouraging maturation, which occurs from the outside in.
Days 3-15
The cheeses should be placed in the drying room, which is kept around a brisk 12°C.
Days 16-20
The cheeses spend five days in the ageing room, which is maintained at an assuredly parky5 9°C.
Day 21
Off to market goes the new Camembert.
Consuming Camembert
A good Camembert is pure white and velvety or downy on the outside and soft, almost crumbly-smooth on the inside, and if 'fresh' will yield up a bouquet very faintly reminiscent (to some) of freshly spilled semen. Camembert-snobs will tend to seek a riper specimen. Depending on conditions, a Camembert can continue to ripen for 2-3 weeks, during which time the smell of ammonia will become apparent whilst the creamy golden interior will become ever-more liquid. Eventually, even the hardiest of Camembert-lovers will concede defeat to an odour that is not far removed from wet P.E. kit that has been allowed to fester undisturbed in a moderate environment inside a plastic bag for more than week, and it should be chucked out, or buried.
Notably, the rind can and should be eaten as part of the Camembert experience, which should also feature a stick of crusty french bread (a baguette), and a cup or two of St. Emilion. Accordion music: essential. Backgammon: optional.
