Camembert de Normandie

Appearance & taste

The cheese has a flat, cylindrical shape 10.5 to 11 cm in diameter; the packaging states a net weight of at least 250 g. The white mould rind may show red spots. The paste is ivory to light yellow and lightly salted; a fully ripened cheese is smooth and soft inside. It contains at least 45 g of fat per 100 g of dry matter and at least 115 g of dry matter per cheese.

The taste is slightly salty, at first milky and mild; as it ripens it becomes clearer and more aromatic.

Each cheese carries a label with the name, the statement “Appellation d’origine protégée” or “AOP” and the EU symbol for protected designations of origin.

Production

Milk production, cheesemaking, ripening and packaging take place in the defined area. The milk comes from farms whose dairy cows have been at least 50 % Normande cattle since 1 May 2017. The cows spend at least six months of the year on pasture. A farm has at least 0.33 ha of grassland per dairy cow, of which at least 0.25 ha is pasture that can be reached from the milking parlours, and 2 ha of meadow per hectare of silage maize. 80 % of the basic ration (dry matter) is produced on the farm itself; supplementary feed is limited to 1,800 kg per cow per year.

The methods named in the specification include hygiene during milking, processing raw milk, partial skimming, coagulation in the vat, ladling the curd into the moulds in layers and draining without assistance. Ripening and packaging are closely linked: the cheese is stored in the ripening room and, where applicable, continues to ripen after packaging.

Origin & history

The area has an oceanic climate. Its hedged landscape is crossed by a dense network of watercourses with many marshes. Thanks to the mild climate the cows can graze on the pastures from March to November. Normande cattle have been kept here for over a century; according to the specification, their milk is well suited to cheesemaking: its high protein content produces a firm curd that can be ladled into the moulds in layers and drains easily on its own. Livarot and Pont-l’Évêque also come from the region.

The cheese is named after the village of Camembert, about 30 km south of Lisieux. The first written references to cheese sold as white cheese to affineurs date from the 17th century. In the second half of the 19th century production rose sharply, and the cheese became more popular once the railway could also take it to the cities. At the beginning of the 20th century and during the First World War, the dairies sought orders from the French army. Because of the high demand, more and more cheese of varying origin was made as “Camembert”. In the end, only Camembert de Normandie was recognised in France as a controlled designation of origin, because it had kept its link to Normandy and to the traditional methods.