So a few weeks ago I received an email from a guy at Ile de France cheese company. They wanted to send me some cheese, and then write about it on the blog. Well eat the cheese, and then write about it. So here goes. I received my cheese in a small box containing a styrofoam container with some ice packs and bubble-wrap shrouding the cheese. My first thought was that great care was taken to get the cheese to me in good shape. After pulling away the packaging I must admit I was a little disappointed at the packaging. It immediately looked to me like an everyday mass-produced household cheese. I’ve been sampling a lot of good cheeses lately and most good ones don’t have a picture of cheese on the package. Our resident Frenchman also pointed out, here was an imported French cheese without a word of French on it. But cheese is good, and one of my personal favorite “cheeses” isn’t actually cheese at all and barely which meets the legal definition of cheese. I pulled it out and let it come up to room temp. Me and the boys sampled the cheese on top of some Pearl Bakery bread. The cheese smeared nicely onto the bread and had a subtle aroma. The creaminess hit me first, rich and buttery. The rind was slightly firm and reminded me of Brie, unsurprisingly. Camembert is the cousin of the King Of Cheese. A fun fact about Camembert: Salvador Dali got the idea for The Persistence of Memory from a wheel of melting Camembert. This cheese was that good. I wrapped what was left up, I wanted to enjoy it later with wine. When I got off, work, that’s just what I did. Since this cheese had such a buttery quality, I decided to finish the wheel in one of my favorite butter ways; on toast with jam. I poured some red wine as the bread toasted. I spread on the cheese, then scooped on some jam. My mouth watered as I sat in the evening sun. The cheese was just barely melting from the warm bread, and when warm, had a certain nuttiness. I read about Camembert later that evening and learned that it was one of the first industrialized cheeses, the advent of its wooden box dating back to 1890, making it possible to send the cheese over further distances. I started to make some connections. I guess the original Ile De France was one of the first refrigerated ocean liners, sailing the seas with cheese just 40 or so years after the wooden cheesebox was invented. Brie and Camembert were one of the first cheeses imported by America, and by this company. I guess between then and now they learned that Americans like their packaging flashy, and in English. And yes, a picture of what’s inside would be helpful. Overall, I really liked the cheese. A simple example of an age-old cheese. Not showing off, not falling behind. Right in the fat part of the curve. A cheese I would eat every day.
