A complete website dedicated to the camembert cheese? What for ?
This question often comes up in readers who usually think that this subject is perhaps a little anecdotal, or that in any case it is not "noble" enough to become the subject of a site and that, in any case, it can not provide a material rich enough to fill it. Others will also add that the subject is already well known and that it hardly deserves more sustained attention ...
However, as P. Boisard's book proclaimed a few years ago, the Camembert is in many ways a "national myth"; its aura has gone beyond France and that diaries make (so called) "camembert cheeses" in many countries of the world (sometimes unexpected). The producers of these cheeses very often ignore that Camembert is originally the name of a small Norman town. Camembert is, in fact, one of the few global French brands!
Camembert is not "a small thing", and because it has a rich history and it is related to an important industry, it can make it a subject of serious studies. We will observe then that the history of the Camembert can even reveal itself as a mirror of the political and economic history of France since the Revolution.
Moreover, if everyone is sure to know the Camembert cheese, many people are unaware of its making, and more importantly, there are just as many, who have never eaten a "real" Camembert. We often discover that if some people associate this cheese with Normandy and Norman cows (as long as we do not ask them too much about their colors), a part of their cheese culture on the subject is rather vague, and even dependent on the advertising campaigns of the most famous brands .... One can hardly get a fair idea of what may be the manufacture of camembert!
This site will have (modestly) vocation, to enlighten those who would like to learn a little more about this cheese: from its Norman origins, to its expansion (when it leaves the village of Camembert and the Auge country to its evolution in a globalized cheese landscape.
We will also try to provide our readers with keys concerning its manufacture but also its tasting.
For those who would like to know even more we will provide an overview on the history of some major brands of Camembert, and complementary links.
Good tasting.
