France’s Ardèche and Drôme regions are so breathtakingly beautiful that they both deserved an entry in one of these guides listing “1000 places to see before you die”. They give home to culinary sensations as well (of course) and today’s cheese is only one of them. Its name used to be a generic term for this kind of disc-shaped goat cheese, there might be a linguistic link to the French word piquer (meaning “biting” or “stinging”) because in the old […]

Categories: Cheese University, France, good food • Tags: Cheese, Food, France

This cheese has come a long, long way, it is fair to assume that it was already made and sold back in the Middle Ages, in the backward villages of lovely Normandy. It is in fact mentioned in documents published in 1560 and 1588, a square thing, strong and spicy, it used to have a washed rind, a croûte lavée, displaying flashy orange colours. Nowadays, producers have modified their procedures, there’s an argument about it, but there’s still only one […]

Categories: Cheese University, France, good food • Tags: Cheese, Food, France

Maybe I write this a little bit too often but the cheese presented today is again one of my favorites. It’s a subtle, soft, soothing yet powerful dairy product, a real character coming from beautiful Burgundy. The colour – flashy orange as you can see in the picture – is misleading in the end. It makes you think of strong tastes, of salty, beastly pleasures but this cheese is not one of those rural hammers. On the contrary, its elegance […]

Categories: Cheese University, France, good food • Tags: Cheese, Food, France

The Loire valley has offered quite a few fine products to the world and our today’s cheese is one of them. A native of the beautiful region called Sancerrois, it calls villages like Amigny, Asnières-sur-Sancerre, Bue, Champlin or Verdigny its home. In a man’s world you’d call it a short guy, displaying a diameter of hardly 6 cm and a height of around 3.5 cm, weighing only 60 grams. Small but powerful, that’s what you should call the Crottin de […]

Categories: Cheese University, France, good food • Tags: Cheese, Food, France