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French Chic & Slim
|| 29 July 2018
Normandy Cheese Update
After I posted the Nouvelles on Normandy cheese on Thursday (see below), our Chic & Slim Special Correspondent Kat emailed these comments:
Glad to see you could use the photo. The shop is called “La Fromagerie de Annabelle” and when the Parisians are down for their vacations I am continually asked for directions. So its repute has obviously spread to Paris.
Most quality French cheese is, indeed, lait cru, aka unpasteurised. And delicious! I have been devouring it for upwards of 40 years with no ill effects, ditto lait cru and crème cru. When I was pregnant , my doc advised me to avoid all of these — although she had no objection to a glass of red wine with dinner! But I just went ahead and ate them [raw milk products], reasoning that all those French women couldn’t be wrong.
The truth is that there are people in remote villages who produce cheese, and the produce MAY be a bit dodgy, depending on hygiene conditions and much else. But if bought from a reputable fromagerie, it is a lot less risky than the additive-ridden, pseudo foods so many people consume on a regular basis!
|| 26 July 2018
Normandy Cheese
I am happy to report that today the afternoon temperature is substantially cooler than the 112 F. (44 C.) I reported last Sunday. Though it is still hot here at Provence-sur-la-Prairie. And very, very dry.
Recently The New York Times published an article On the Normandy Cheese Trail. Writer Ingrid K Williams traveled around Normandy sampling various cheeses produced in that northern region of France.
A couple of weeks previously our Chic & Slim Special Correspondent Kat was in Normandy. She emailed a photo of the fromagerie in Pont-l’Évêque where she shops.
One point which the NYTimes Normandy cheese article reminds us is that much of the highest quality cheese produced in France is made from raw milk. Unfortunately laws prohibit these cheeses from being imported into the USA. The reason behind this prohibition is a belief that raw milk cheeses are dangerous. However, they don’t seem to hurt the French who consume them in quantity.
be chic, stay slim — Anne Barone
Image : Cheese shop in Normandy. Photo by Chic & Slim Special Correspondent Kat