Camembert

Camembert is a moist, soft, creamy cow's milk cheese that ripens from the surface inward, giving it a bloomy white rind and a butterfat content slightly lower than Brie's. It originated in late eighteenth-century Normandy, in the village of Camembert, reportedly created in 1791 by the farmer Marie Harel from an existing regional recipe; her son-in-law later presented a wheel to Napoleon III, and the modern industrial form took shape around 1890 when the engineer M. Ridel invented the wooden box still used to transport and store it. It is made from milk inoculated with mesophilic bacteria and rennet, its curds cut into small cubes, salted and molded, then sprayed with Penicillium camemberti mold and ripened for at least three weeks; the designation Camembert de Normandie received French appellation d'origine controlee protection in 1983 and European protected designation of origin status in 1992, requiring raw, unpasteurized milk from Norman cow breeds, while cheeses sold internationally as Camembert are typically pasteurized. Its issue to French troops during the First World War helped cement its place in French culture.