#24 - Brie

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This brie rounded out the cheese board for our game night. Always a crowd-pleaser, I was glad to find a wedge this size at a good price! More cheese for everyone makes everyone happier, right?

Sometimes I feel like brie is so ubiquitous that it can be overlooked, so I wanted to take special care to do some background on the history of this cheese, and what we are actually getting when we buy brie in this country.

Origin

From Wikipedia:

"Brie is a historic region of France most famous for its dairy products, especially Brie cheese. It was once divided into three sections ruled by different feudal lords: the western Brie française, corresponding roughly to the modern department of Seine-et-Marne in the Île-de-France region; the eastern Brie champenoise, forming a portion of the modern department of Marne in the historic region of Champagne (part of modern-day Champagne-Ardenne); and the northern Brie pouilleuse, forming part of the modern department of Aisne in Picardy."

Varieties

Again, from Wikipedia:

"There are now many varieties of brie made all over the world, including plain brie, herbed varieties, double and triple brie and versions of brie made with other types of milk. Indeed, although brie is a French cheese, it is possible to obtain Somerset and Wisconsin. Despite the variety of bries, the French government officially certifies only two types of cheese to be sold under that name: Brie de Meaux and Brie de Melun."

Drama 

This Slate article points out that the brie we can get here in the US is rarely the real thing, and that the result is that we get bland, factory made "brie" (that is, with a lowercase "b") which hardly resembles the original. Real Brie, capital "B",  isn't permitted to be imported into the US because it is made with raw, unpasteurized milk. Womp.

So, while it may not be the most interesting or authentic of cheeses, brie still holds a special place in my heart (and I will likely still call on it on those nights when a girl just needs an entire bottle of red wine and wheel of cheese to herself).