The best known of the Normandy cheeses is Camembert, so we went to Camembert to have a look around.
It is a tiny little hamlet on a hill. The township consists of the church, the cemetery, the marie, a community noticeboard, a tiny hall and a large parking lot. That's it!
It also has one other building and that is the tourist shop. But while there was an excellent display board, which I photographed to share with you, the staff were too busy carrying on their private lives to "push the produce" so to speak, so we didn't get to taste any cheese.
We did collect lots of interesting facts and figures though.
Camembert is a cheese with a soft body, aged rind and 45% fat content. It is of a flat, cylindrical shape with a diameter of around 11cm and a minimum weight of 250g. These are the standardised AOC requirements for a Camembert of Normandy and the AOC standard has been applied since 1983.
The body of the cheese ranges from white to creamy yellow, with a soft, slightly furry rind which is mostly white but can contain red marks. The camembert that carries the AOC mark is manufactured exclusively with raw milk and ladle-moulded.
The next cheese is called Le Pont - l'Eveque after a town that has given its name to its local cheese.
We tried pont-l'eveque a number of times - from different farms, and it was quite a strong, full bodied taste with a firm texture. Very nice.
These are the wooden moulds use to set the cheese.
The buildings in Pont L'Eveque looks exactly like this. Norman colombard houses with georgous covered gateways.
The oldest of the Normandy cheeses is Neufchatel. It is said that its heart shape embodied the fruit of co-operation between the occupying English during the Hundred Years War (back in the 1300s) and the young girls of the region who offered them cheese.
Nuefchatel cheese has had an AOC since 1969. It has a soft body with an aged rind and is also 45% fat. It comes in various shapes: log, double log, square, block or heart.
The advice to the cook here is to taste the cheese before cooking with it as it can become very salty.
This was my favourite because I had never tasted it in Australia. It is called Livarot and is also named after a town in the Calvados-Pays d'Auge region which we visited. The cheese is more impressive than the town from which it takes its name.
The packaging of the Livarot is quite splendid and it looks fabulous on a cheese board. The first time it was offered to us it was uncut and the finely decorated paper wrap and tie was intriguing.
On that same cheese board there was a cone of local goat's cheese, with a skewer through it, to facilitate lifting because it was extremely runny in the centre but with a furry, slightly blue tinge to the rind.
I did a diservice to Le Presbytère, our lovely B&B featured in the previous blog, because I didn't mention the stunning breakfasts. That's because I thought it was a bit rude to take my camera to breakfast.
Bernadette served a firm, creamy gruyere, from the region that borders Calvados, cut into rectangular slices with a good crust, together with ham off the bone. The only gruyere I had previously tasted was like sour plastic in comparison.
There was also home made apricot jam and rhubarb and berry jam and home made apple puree without sugar. But you should have tasted the fruit salad - apple (of course), plum, grapes and figs. Served with natural yogurt set in a glass pot. And seated in the dining room, with fine crockery and cutlery, background music and Baghéra, the assistant cub leader winding her way between our legs or sitting perfectly still on the window sill. So very nice and the best breakfasts of the trip for me.
It is a tiny little hamlet on a hill. The township consists of the church, the cemetery, the marie, a community noticeboard, a tiny hall and a large parking lot. That's it!
It also has one other building and that is the tourist shop. But while there was an excellent display board, which I photographed to share with you, the staff were too busy carrying on their private lives to "push the produce" so to speak, so we didn't get to taste any cheese.
We did collect lots of interesting facts and figures though.
Camembert is a cheese with a soft body, aged rind and 45% fat content. It is of a flat, cylindrical shape with a diameter of around 11cm and a minimum weight of 250g. These are the standardised AOC requirements for a Camembert of Normandy and the AOC standard has been applied since 1983.
The body of the cheese ranges from white to creamy yellow, with a soft, slightly furry rind which is mostly white but can contain red marks. The camembert that carries the AOC mark is manufactured exclusively with raw milk and ladle-moulded.
The round box made of poplar wood was, when created, truly a revolution that allowed camembert to stand up to long trips - two very thin circles of poplar wood connected by a long thin piece of the same material, attached by long, thin nails.
The next cheese is called Le Pont - l'Eveque after a town that has given its name to its local cheese.
AOC since 1972, this cheese has a soft body and a rinsed rind, with a minimum fat content of 45%. It is always square in shape but comes in various sizes from 150g up to 1.5kg. The body of the cheese is homogenous and covered with a rind ranging in colour from golden yellow to orange.
We tried pont-l'eveque a number of times - from different farms, and it was quite a strong, full bodied taste with a firm texture. Very nice.
These are the wooden moulds use to set the cheese.
The buildings in Pont L'Eveque looks exactly like this. Norman colombard houses with georgous covered gateways.
The oldest of the Normandy cheeses is Neufchatel. It is said that its heart shape embodied the fruit of co-operation between the occupying English during the Hundred Years War (back in the 1300s) and the young girls of the region who offered them cheese.
Nuefchatel cheese has had an AOC since 1969. It has a soft body with an aged rind and is also 45% fat. It comes in various shapes: log, double log, square, block or heart.
The moulds are on the right of the photo: heart, round, double square, etc.
The advice to the cook here is to taste the cheese before cooking with it as it can become very salty.
This was my favourite because I had never tasted it in Australia. It is called Livarot and is also named after a town in the Calvados-Pays d'Auge region which we visited. The cheese is more impressive than the town from which it takes its name.
The packaging of the Livarot is quite splendid and it looks fabulous on a cheese board. The first time it was offered to us it was uncut and the finely decorated paper wrap and tie was intriguing.
On that same cheese board there was a cone of local goat's cheese, with a skewer through it, to facilitate lifting because it was extremely runny in the centre but with a furry, slightly blue tinge to the rind.
I did a diservice to Le Presbytère, our lovely B&B featured in the previous blog, because I didn't mention the stunning breakfasts. That's because I thought it was a bit rude to take my camera to breakfast.
Bernadette served a firm, creamy gruyere, from the region that borders Calvados, cut into rectangular slices with a good crust, together with ham off the bone. The only gruyere I had previously tasted was like sour plastic in comparison.
There was also home made apricot jam and rhubarb and berry jam and home made apple puree without sugar. But you should have tasted the fruit salad - apple (of course), plum, grapes and figs. Served with natural yogurt set in a glass pot. And seated in the dining room, with fine crockery and cutlery, background music and Baghéra, the assistant cub leader winding her way between our legs or sitting perfectly still on the window sill. So very nice and the best breakfasts of the trip for me.
Following your trip & reading your value adding comments has been "almost better" than getting out of my armchair. A big thanks for taking the time to blog & pat yourselves on the back for taking the time of your lives to be there,
ReplyDeleteBlessing,
Jan