11.90€
- French AOC cheeses
- Goat's milk cheese
- Cow's milk cheese
- Ewe's milk cheese
- Cheeses in season
- All AOC cheeses
3 items minimum
9.35€ 250g
Its aspect
Flourished rind, sprinkled with red, or brownish, streaks or spots. Golden yellow paste, quite homogenous, smooth, elastic but not flabby. Very fruity taste and flavour. Strong “terroir” smell.
Its maturing
4 to 8 weeks. Raw milk only. Paste is neither pressed nor cooked.. Curdled by milk fermentation, sometimes with rennet added, 18 hours minimum. Slow draining. Salted with dry salt. Hand moulded with a “Brie shovel”.
Its history
For twelve centuries, Brie cheese has always been around Kings and mighty people. From Charlemagne to Henri IV and Charles of Orleans, all chanted the pleasure of tasting Brie. And Gargantua, Rabelais’s epicurean character, offers it to his parents.
In 1814, it got the supreme recognition of the Vienna Congress. While Talleyran and thirty ambassadors were dividing Europe, a contest was organized to elect the “king of cheeses”. And it is the Brie, already “cheese of kings”, which won the competition.
There is little difference between maturing processes of Brie of Melun and Brie of Meaux (pronounce “mo”). Milk fermentation takes at least 18 hours. It helps creating the “ferment du rouge”, some sort of red stripes which appear under the white down of its rind.
Less strong and salty than its cousin the Brie of Melun, its creamy paste is easy to cook. It is superbly complemented by a red Gaillac wine.
