CTN: Awesome Camembert!

Not a fashionable cheese. Not "artisinal" at all I'm guessing, because I bought it at TRADER JOE'S!

LE RUSTIQUE (Jean Verrier) Camembert from Normandy. Awesomely ripe and gooey and stinky. I, of course, forgot to buy crackers at Trader Joe's today, but I have been literally dipping my fingers in the gooey goodness. Darn, this is delicious!

Not a fashionable cheese. Not "artisinal" at all I'm guessing, because I bought it at TRADER JOE'S!

LE RUSTIQUE (Jean Verrier) Camembert from Normandy. Awesomely ripe and gooey and stinky. I, of course, forgot to buy crackers at Trader Joe's today, but I have been literally dipping my fingers in the gooey goodness. Darn, this is delicious!

Another one of the cheeses I bought recently that had a horrible amonia taste. Is that normal? It was not from TJ's though. I had to throw it out.

[Robin Garr]

Another one of the cheeses I bought recently that had a horrible amonia taste. Is that normal? It was not from TJ's though. I had to throw it out.

That's what happens when cheese gets too old. Cheese, especially ripe cheese varieties, is a little like wine in this regard, only the aging curve is much quicker. Once it goes around the bend, it's gone.

But to state the response another way, a good, ripe but fresh Camembert should not smell like ammonia. Not at all. (And on the other end of the curve, if you open it too young, when it still has a firm, kind of "swiss"-like consistency, it's just bland and boring. You want it when it starts getting a little runny, but then you want to eat it up.

Soft cheeses usually go through the same evolution from firm, through soft and gooey to (if you leave them long enough) the ammonia-ridden senescence of a good cheese that went too long.

Classic example of a cheese that follows that path is the Vacherin de Mont d'Or from France (also a version from the other side of the border in Switzerland). Wonderful cheese you eat with a spoon or slather on rustic bread when in top shape, but a definite anti-personnel chemical weapon if you leave it too long (I've got one on order for this December)

Persimmons, avocados, cheese... a lot of things are best when they're really, really ripe, i.e., the day _before_ they start going bad.

Persimmons, avocados, cheese... a lot of things are best when they're really, really ripe, i.e., the day _before_ they start going bad.

au pic, n'est ce pas?

[Robin Garr]

au pic, n'est ce pas?

I'm more accustomed to hearing it as "au point," but maybe it's a regional French distinciton?

au pic, n'est ce pas?

I'm more accustomed to hearing it as "au point," but maybe it's a regional French distinciton?

Yes, au pointe is more usual...au pic is probably more formal...au fuhgedaboudit.

Not a fashionable cheese. Not "artisinal" at all I'm guessing, because I bought it at TRADER JOE'S!

LE RUSTIQUE (Jean Verrier) Camembert from Normandy. Awesomely ripe and gooey and stinky. I, of course, forgot to buy crackers at Trader Joe's today, but I have been literally dipping my fingers in the gooey goodness. Darn, this is delicious!

Another one of the cheeses I bought recently that had a horrible amonia taste. Is that normal? It was not from TJ's though. I had to throw it out.

Mine was not over-ripe or ammonicac. Luck of the draw, I guess.