the Cheese of the Kings…or the King of Cheeses!

One of the most peculiar moments of the last Salon du Fromage was the colourful joint ceremony of the “confreries” of the Brie de Meaux and Brie de Melun. These institutions were set up in the early 1990s with the mission to preserve and promote one of the oldest cheese-making traditions in the World: the authentic Brie cheese.

The brie is a legendary cheese. It is extremely old. It is already mentioned in the time of Charlemagne (in the year 774! by comparison the Camembert dates “only” from the late XVIII century, and is said to have originated when an refugee from the French revolution took the brie’s cheese-making secrets to Normandie). Its history is so interrelated with that of France and its rulers that the brie has earned itself the appelative of both “Cheese of the Kings” or “King of Cheeses” (apparently the order of the words was changed, for obvious reasons, after the French Revolution), as many French kings of all times were keen consumers.

Today Brie-style cheese can easily be found in supermarkets around the World, although not all of it might be the real AOP-certified, stuff., but what many people do not know though is that there are two types of brie: the Brie de Meaux and the Brie de Melun. They originate in the towns with the respective names, both in the Île-de-France region near Paris. In fact, some producers make the two types.

The difference between the two is hard to spot for the non-experts, but the Brie de Melun tends to be a bit smaller and with stronger taste because of a somehow longer period of “affinage” (maturation).

At the salon there was ample opportunity to taste both and, there was also, of course, time to enjoy the show!

PS: for those interested in learning more about the Brie, here are the links to the confreries of the Brie de Meaux and the Brie de Melun.