Camembert de Normandie is a small bloomy cow's-milk cheese from Normandy, and the protected version of Camembert. It is made to ripen through, from a soft rind toward a supple center.
It is close to Brie, but the format is a small round and the smell is often stronger. Eat it when the center has softened. A chalk-white core is not ripe yet. A wheel labeled only Camembert may be a different, industrial cheese.
History
The cheese belongs to the Auge, in Normandy, where rich cow's milk and cider country sit together. A popular story says a farmer named Marie Harel invented it after advice from a priest in hiding. Historians treat that story as uncertain. What is sure is that a small bloomy cheese from this district was famous by the nineteenth century.
The wooden box made the soft cheese able to travel. In the late nineteenth century, a maker named Ridel packed Camembert in a round wooden box, and the cheese could then go to Paris and beyond without collapsing. Later, industrial Camembert spread across France and the world. Much of it is pasteurized, made in a different way, and kept stable so the center stays pale. Camembert de Normandie is the protected name for the older style. It is a raw-milk cheese, ladled into small rounds, and meant to ripen.
How it is made
The curd is set gently and ladled into small molds. It is not pressed into a block. Salt and a white surface mold form the thin rind. The cheeses ripen in a humid room. The mold feeds on the surface and softens the paste underneath, week by week, until a ripe cheese yields to a light touch.
Industrial Camembert often skips that path. Pasteurized milk, a different curd handling, and a stabilized paste keep the cheese firm and mild for transport. It can still be a pleasant small Brie-like cheese. It will not become the spoonable, aromatic round of a ripe Camembert de Normandie. When you buy the protected name, plan on a living cheese. It will move from chalky to creamy in your keeping, and then it will go too far.
Taste
An unripe wheel tastes milky and mild, with a firm white center. A ripe one tastes of mushrooms, butter, salt, and a deeper savor that can remind you of brassica or warm milk. The rind is stronger than the paste. A good smell is mushroom and cellar, not cleaning ammonia.
The famous strong smell arrives with ripeness. It should still smell appetizing, not sharp and chemical. If the paste is brown and running, and the box smells only of ammonia, the cheese is past the best moment. If the center is a dry chalk, wait. Warm the round in its box for an hour and test the center again.
In the kitchen
Serve a ripe round with bread, butter, and something crisp or acidic: a salad, an apple, or potatoes. In Normandy it sits naturally next to cider. Baked Camembert, in the box, is a common modern use. Bake it only until it slumps. A long bake dries the rind and makes the smell harsher.
Eat the rind if you eat the cheese. Do not trim a Camembert down to a bland center and expect the point of the cheese to remain. Do not slice it onto a pizza. It will oil off and overwhelm the other food. Brie de Meaux is the substitute when you want a larger, often milder bloomy cheese. A stabilized supermarket Camembert is the substitute when you need a mild wedge that holds a slice.
Around the world
The protected cheese is made in Normandy. The word Camembert is used worldwide for a small white-rinded cow's-milk round. France itself produces a huge amount of ordinary Camembert beyond the protected rules. Germany, the United States, and other countries make the shape as well.
The box, the small round, and the white rind are the clues shoppers know. The words de Normandie are the clue that matters for the old cheese. A copy can be a good supper cheese. It is not the raw-milk ladled cheese of the Auge. Treat the two as relatives. Cooks who say Camembert and mean a baked party round are usually thinking of the sturdy supermarket cheese, which survives the oven more calmly.