Why the French Love Cheese

"Comment voulez-vous gouverner un pays qui a deux cent quarante-six variétés de fromage?"
("How does one govern a country that has 246 varieties of cheese?")
~President Charles de Gaulle, Les Mots du General, 1962

Tonight my host family and I had a cheese tasting party.
It was probably one of the funnest experiences I've had here in France.



Monsieur loves cheese. Our host family always has cheese after the main dish, and each time our host father enthusiatically chooses a large slice to accompany his petit piece of pain, remarking about the wonderful goût and telling my roommate and I that we really should have more.

This is part of the reason why I really wanted to do this photo essay on cheese. After many unsuccessful attempts at photographing cheese through display window cases, I finally caved in and bought a plate sampling four different kinds of cheese from small fromagerie, and asked Madame if it would be okay to try them after dinner with everyone. It turns out that cheese sampling is a favorite activity of theirs, and Monsieur told me he was very excited to try the little cheeses. "They are so cute!" he exclaimed in english.

After dinner, and after the sampling of many cheeses and explanations to me of what some of them were, I asked if I could go get my camera and take pictures.
"Ahhh," replied Monsieur "the before and after photo."
Oui, the before and after photo. After acknowledging that I felt a bit weird for taking pictures of cheese on their table, the whole family immediately started giving suggestions.
"Oh it's not a problem...but maybe if you take off the plastic wrap!" exclaimed the son,



"We must put them on a nicer plate!" declared Madame,



"Here, would you like a picture of all the cheeses together?" asked Monsieur.


I once asked Madame if it was true that France had over 300 different kinds of cheese, and she quickly corrected me.
"It is not three hundred kinds of cheese, it's over one thousand."

It's true- while there are around 300 traditional varieties of cheese, the actual number produced is over 1000. The secret is that each region produces over a hundred different cheeses, and France is very protective of their local produce.

Take Camembert, for instance. Camembert originates from Normandy, and in order for a round of Camembert to officially have the qualifying seal of "Normandy Camembert," it has to be made from unpasteurised cows milk in Normandy.


Did you know that there's a big debate on cheese made from pasteurised versus unpasteurised milk? For the most part, France is on the unpasteurised side, arguing that the goût changes when it is pasteurised, and it is of the utmost important to preserve le goût. As Madame told me jokingly, and yet somewhat seriously tonight, "The bacteria are what make it taste good."

"A meal without cheese is a beautiful woman with an eye missing."
~Brillat-Savarin (from La Physiologie du goût)

I'd have to agree.