Smelly Cheese
Chaussée aux Moines
This is My Paris Fromage (cheese)
One guilty pleasure (which may destroy my French cheese credibility) is always available in Paris convenience stores. You won’t need to go into a cheese shop (fromagerie) to find Chausse aux Moines.
Some might look forward to their first taste of European butter or an omelett when arriving in Paris. For me, it’s Chausse aux Moines on a fresh French baguette – slathered with strong Dijon style mustard.
This semi soft wheel of cheese, a curious springy hockey puck, is never over ripe, with a pleasant chewy quality and a delicious rind.
Some Cheese Snobs will dismiss me, but for an American, Chaussée aux Moines is superior to Kraft, Cracker Barrel or other generial supermarket cheeses. When my traveling companion ate it, she described it as stinky. (which for me is a badge-of-honor)
“Carriageway (or Roadway) of the Monks” Cheese Wikipedia Translation
Life in France: One Stinky Cheese at a Time A Year in Cheese (Kazz Regelman)
A mass produced commercial (“industrial”) cheese, manufactured by a large company with a complete advertising campaign.
Then we move on to the other more authentic French cheeses
Adventures in Cheese
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Adventures in Cheese
The Peculiar Pleasures of Smelly Cheeses
(attributed to Michael Pollan)
Some speak of French Wine
how in France, a glass of wine is less cheaper than a soft drink
(which I have never experienced or appreciated)
For me it is always more about the Cheese
Not necessarily from the fancy street-front Fromageries, but common grocery stores,
usually the 8 à Huit or Marché Franprix mini-markets (a French gourmet version of your local 7-Eleven convenience store)
I occasionally soak the wine (or Champaign) label off the bottle, but all my cheese wrappers are stuffed into a zip-lock to tabulate upon my return to the USA
Here is my amazing (perhaps embarrassing) Cheese “log”:
Chaussée aux Moines (this is my Every-Day Go-To Paris cheese)
Cheese (Fromage) Links
Selles -sur-Cher
Roblochon
Morbier
Saint-Félicien
Valençay goat cheese
Saint-Marcellin
Tomme de Savoie
Beaufort
Brie
Comté (regularly dubbed “France’s favorite cheese”)
Rustique Camembert
Morbier
Reblochon
Munster Géromé
Ossau-Iraty sharp Basque Sheep’s milk cheese
Saint Albray
St-Marcellin
Sheep Cheese
Vacherin (Mont d’O) potent mountain cheese
Cheese Links
https://wp.me/p3hvvc-2t4
My favorite is Le Super Marché Cheese Plate when I can find one, with a combo of soft, stinky and “dangerous” fromage
(or even that piece of cheese which is marked-down because it is very ripe)
The Cheese Course
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Paris for the Holidays 