Posts Tagged cheese

From Cheese Slices by Will Studd

The earliest account of the flat, disc shaped cheese we now know as Brie was written by Emperor Charlemagne’s private secretary in the seventh century. On a visit to a priory near the town of Meaux, the King was offered the cheese from the monk’s cellars. On tasting it, he is said to have declared, ‘Je viens de trouver un des mets les plus delicieux’ (I have just discovered one of the most delicious of all dishes’). He placed an annual order of Brie from Meaux to be delivered to his places at Aix.

Brie continues to be a favorite at the French cort but, by a strange twist of fate, the royal fondness for Brie eventually had fatal consequences for the monarchy. When Louis XVI fled the revolutionary turmoil of Paris in 1791, he stopped for a meal near Varennes, where lingered to finish a delicious Brie de Meaux. The delay gave his pursuers time to catch up, arrest him, and return him to Paris for trial and execution.

A slice of Brie de Meaux. Very creamy. Taste like sniffing a bag of fresh button mushrooms.