ABOVE: Camembert
Regional Foods - Camembert
I’m in a warm milking shed in the Orne, the air thick with animal smells and folk music. Just in front of me, ballooned out to the size of a rugby ball, are a pair of goat’s udders. They’re a daunting sight for a city dweller. Under direction, I gingerly take hold of one and attempt the squeeze-pull-squeeze routine I’ve been taught. The udder is hot, pink and, after much awkward fumbling on my part, eventually yields a needle-thin jet of milk. It’s an odd sensation – like massaging a baby mole – but I persevere.
If the region’s cheese-making relied on the likes of me, production levels wouldn’t be too high. Luckily there are characters such as Christian Lalière at the helm, whose picturesque Ferme de l’Aritoire manufactures more than 200 goat’s cheeses a day for markets across Normandy and Paris. Life seems good. He plays music to his livestock at milking time (“As long as they don’t start dancing, everything’s OK”) and wears the merry smile of a fairytale woodcutter. He and his wife are among the industry’s old-school practitioners, focusing on traditional quality. They sell various specialist goat’s cheeses on site. The six-week-old variety, dried and spiced, is magnificent and, as far as local competition is concerned, it needs to be. Normandy’s cheese output is legendary and historically rooted in the protein-rich milk of the local brownpatched cows.
Four brands
There are four commonly accepted local specialities. Three of these will be familiar to cheese-board lovers: Livarot, Pont l’Évêque and Neufchâtel. The fourth (and, almost impossibly, the least pungent) borders on the iconic. For many people, Normandy is Camembert. Its production employs around 10,000 locals and the distinct taste – part creamy, part goût de la terre – has seen it become a perennial favourite on dessert trolleys from Cape Town to Chicago. One leading brand, Président, sells 100,000 units an hour globally. That’s a lot of cheese.
All of which makes arriving at the tiny village of Camembert itself, dappled in spring sunshine, quite a surreal experience. Just 210 people live here; a lone steeple pierces the skyline. It might be the spiritual home of a gastronomic phenomenon, but with industrialisation forcing producers into a corner, only one remains in the village. A typical day for owner, François Durand, results in an output of 400 cheeses. They are au lait cru, made from unpasteurised milk, and bear the government-accredited AOC stamp.
Durand is a born traditionalist. “Do I eat much Camembert? Beaucoup!” he says, as lowing cows trudge past to be milked. “A lot of people enjoy it with the local cider and that works well, but that’s quite a recent thing. For me it’s always been best with a glass of Bordeaux. There’s a new school of thought that says a good Camembert with a good Bordeaux actually spoils the taste of both. Pff.” He grins. “Not as far as I’m concerned.”
His preference for a regional mix is apt. Sitting half a mile away from the farm is a broad-timbered family house. This is, allegedly, where Norman cheese came of age. Legend has it that in 1791, with the Revolution in full swing, an exiled refractory priest from south of Paris was given refuge here. Having one day watched a household maid prepare a sloppy fromage blanc mixture, he advised her that better results would come from treating the cheese and letting it ‘set’. The maid, now immortalised as the mother of Camembert, was Marie Harel. And the priest with the handy hints? Well, his home province had experimented with a thing or two over the years. Its name: Brie.
The front line
It’s one of several Camembert stories as colourful as its now celebrated box labels. Others include Napoléon III introducing it to nobles in 1863 after being proffered a mouthful at a local train station; one million cheeses a month being sent to French soldiers on the front during World War I and Salvador Dali basing his ‘melting clock’ designs on an over-ripe wheel of the good stuff.
Legends aside, however, what’s certain is that the manufacturing process has been perfected. The milk is left to coagulate in a large vat, before being ladled out – curds, whey and all – into loo roll-shaped perforated moulds. The whey then drains off overnight, reducing the mixture to the familiar Camembert shape. This is covered with a layer of salt, then again with penicillium candidum, a fungal mould that gives the cheese its white crust and allows ripening from the outside inwards. Twelve days later, time to eat.
It’s a process carried out to perfection at Ferme Chez Lopez, another artisan producer in the region. Ludovic Lopez has nine cows and 50 goats, churning out 400 Camemberts and 600 goat’s cheeses a week. Taking a break from salting, he explains what makes the smaller farms unique. “Of our nine cows, only six are Norman. Three are from Jersey, so the overall taste has subtle differences. It’s one of the things that makes every AOC cheese a singular product.” “Normandy is the prince of the cheese regions,” he says, as we wash down a deliciously earthy Camembert with Cidre du Pays d’Auge. There’s a passion at all these small-scale farms that gives the product itself a character above and beyond the taste. Back on Ferme de l’Aritoire, Christian Lalière’s wife Annie, after patiently helping me flip day-old cheeses in their moulds, sums up the Normandy ethos. “You must treat each one like a married woman,” she says, holding my wedding ring finger for emphasis. “Handle with love and with care. OK?”
Farmers
- François Durand La Ferme de la Héronnière 61120 Camembert Tel: (Fr) 2 33 39 08 08
- Ludovic Lopez Chez Lopez, Le Val Richard 61110 Bretoncelles Tel: (Fr) 2 33 37 05 22
- Christian Lalière Ferme de l’Aritoire 61110 La Madeleine Bouvet Tel: (Fr) 2 33 73 93 34 Where to stay
- Fermes de Florence Les Fonciers 61120 Les Champeaux-en-Auge www.lesfermesdeflorence.com Tel: (Fr)2 33 39 15 56
- Domaine de la Louveterie 61110 Moutiers-au-Perche www.domainedelalouveterie.com Tel: (Fr) 2 33 73 11 63 Normandy Tourist Board Tel: (Fr) 2 32 33 79 00 info@normandie-tourisme.org