[Don_1 (OP)]

If you found something in your kitchen cabinet or fridge, from which a ghastly pong was emanating, probably the last thing you think of doing would be eating it.

So what is it about a nice ripe Camembert that makes it so scrummy?

[Karen W.]

What the heck is a camembert []

[Don_1 (OP)]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camembert_(cheese)

[BenV]

It's a ripe French cheese, at it's utmost best when covered in breadcrumbs and baked...

[dentstudent]

I would certainly eat it! But I bet it's not as smelly as a good ripe Chaumes. This is real postman's feet territory.

[dentstudent]

It's a ripe French cheese, at it's utmost best when covered in breadcrumbs and baked...

..with cranberry sauce!

[Karen W.]

Oooh I love cheese....but have never heard of it...I must try and find some.....

It sounds good and I do tend to like stronger cheeses!

[Don_1 (OP)]

I would certainly eat it! But I bet it's not as smelly as a good ripe Chaumes. This is real postman's feet territory.

Oooo yes!!! Another goody.

[Don_1 (OP)]

Oooh I love cheese....but have never heard of it...I must try and find some.....

It sounds good and I do tend to like stronger cheeses!

It has a similar texture to Brie, but a very much stronger flavour. Best eaten at room temperature.

[Don_1 (OP)]

 

Unfortunately for American consumers, true Camembert (always made with raw milk) is simply unavailable in the U.S. Why? It must be made with raw (unpasteurized) milk, and any cheese made with raw milk must be aged at least sixty days before it can be sold in the U.S. The difficulty here is that raw milk Camembert won’t last that long. It’s aged for just two or three weeks and is at its best thirty or thirty-five days after it’s made; this stage of perfect ripeness and ideal eating quality is called “a point” (pronounced ah PWAHN) in France. Sixty-day-old Camembert would look and smell like something a chemical company was trying to hide. There are pasteurized Camemberts sold in the U.S., however. They are tasty; they just lack the range of complexity of the raw milk cheese. (Read a discussion of raw milk cheese.)

[Karen W.]

Oooh I love cheese....but have never heard of it...I must try and find some.....

It sounds good and I do tend to like stronger cheeses!

It has a similar texture to Brie, but a very much stronger flavour. Best eaten at room temperature.

Brie is ok but I find it a bit bland.... but this sound like it at least has a kick! Yummmmy!

to bad it is not available here the right way!

[Don_1 (OP)]

Brie and Camembert are both made to the same recipe. The difference between the two comes from the locál from which they originate, or ‘a point’ as the French put it. I don’t know, but presume, that this has some effect on the milk.

True brie, like camembert cannot be obtained in the US. What you are getting is a version made with pasteurised milk. This might explain the blandness of the cheese you are eating.

It seems that it is illegal to import or sell soft cheeses made from unpasteurised milk in the US unless it has been allowed to mature for 60 days minimum. Since brie and camembert should not be allowed to mature for more than 30 days, it cannot be imported into the US.

Quote from US Customs & Border Protection (as issued by US Embassy, London)
General list of approved products:
Cheeses - fully cured hard cheese only

This appears to apply to personal imports for personal consumption, but does not affect imports from Canada where you can get the real McCoy.

This company imports from France and supplies independent retailers. Perhaps they could give you details of a Canadian internet retailer. http://www.dovreimport.com/fine_cheese.php?list=fine_cheese

Do I get a commission for this blatant plug?

[Make it Lady]

My sister-in-law is a nurse and she openned our fridge one day and closed it again rapidly. "You have something in your fridge that smells like an infected wound."
I'd eaten the very ripe cheese quite happily before then but after that it lost it's charm. Can't think why.
Samual Peeps had a passion for smelly cheeses. Apparently when the fire of London started he buried his cheese in the garden for safe keeping.   

[dentstudent]

Following the original title of the thread "Would you eat this?", this was in today's Telegraph.

[Don_1 (OP)]

Very amusing. Din dins looked a bit suspect I must admit.

[Madidus_Scientia]

A good question, if taste is mostly based on smell, then if it smells bad why doesn't it taste bad?

[dentstudent]

I heard that humans have a very accute sense of smell for some chemicals, and this particular example was the smell of gas. It was said that we can smell gas to the same dilution that sharks "smell" blood in water. If that is the case, perhaps it is not surprising that when we taste something, the response is less accute than when we smell it.

[BenV]

But the 'smell' of natural gas is an added in compound, so that we can better identify it. I don't think the gas itself has any odour.

[dentstudent]

But the 'smell' of natural gas is an added in compound, so that we can better identify it. I don't think the gas itself has any odour.

Sorry, yes Ben you're quite right, and I didn't state that quite correctly. We're very sensitive to the smell that is put into gas, which is why it's used. But do you know what the smell is?

[LeeE]

I believe that's true Ben, re natural gas.

Re the smelly cheeses; taste isn't just down to what goes in your mouth; smell has an awful lot to do with it as well, so for a lot of things you can't really separate the smell from the taste as part of the taste is from the smell.

I find parmesan cheese weird; I like it, on the right meals, but to me it smells like vomit on it's own.