Le Fromager
November 15, 2008 by La Flaneur
The Cheese store is one of the best parts of French living. Everyone generally knows how famous France is for the varieties here. An oft-repeated quote about it comes from Charles De Gaulle who once asked, “How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese?” Even that estimate is probably too low as many have cited a different cheese for every day in the year. Winston Churchill even pegged the number at 360 back in 1940. There are indeed a bewildering array of cheeses from which to choose and it is part of the culture.
We have what anyone would consider a very good shop near our home which can be seen in the photos here. There are indeed many varieties of the most basic types of cheese. Goat cheese alone comes in dozens of varieties that vary by origin, age, texture, and shape. A complete list of cheeses can be found on Wikipedia but commercial sites like Fromages.com has a complete and very informative cheese library which goes into every type of cheese showing it’s characteristics, origin, and even preferred wines for pairing. If you don’t speak French it won’t be easy to get help in most cheese shops outside of Paris. However you can always point. For hard cheese choices like Comte and Mimolette are very good and low risk. The older ones are better, at least up to a point. One of the best goat cheese varieties is often referred to as La Pyramide due to its shape. It tends to be a drier and firmer goat cheese but when done well it is also surprisingly creamy.
Most cheese shops also have special cheeses “a la maison” that offer a bit more adventure. These often have extra ingredients like nuts inside or layers of different cheeses. Raisins also often make an appearance on the outside of special cheeses. Beyond cheese one will typically also find fresh yogurts, breads, crackers, a dessert or tw
o and even a limited selection of wines.
There are famous cheese stores in Paris and once we find a useful link to them we’ll post it here. But the best way to discover a fine cheese shop is by looking around. They are all very good to excellent compared to what you might find elsewhere and probably about 1 in 10 are especially good like the one shown here. The differences are hard to describe but when you walk into one, you just know it.
