The goal of this site is to demonstrate the variety and the quality of Norman cheeses. Unfortunately one of the first problems you must cope with is to determine the exact number of cheeses in Normandy ...
The production has changed a lot during the last ten centuries; many cheeses appeared, evolved, changed their names and sometimes disappeared. Nowadays it can be said that there are at least ten different cheeses in Normandy - and more than twenty if you take into account all the variations.
Here is an extract from a small document published in the city of Rouen in 1933 during the "Fête du ventre" (The Stomach Fair). At that time a dinner was organized in the "Couronne" (the oldest inn in France) where the guests (famous citizens of Rouen) had to write a small poem or a song to glorify the twenty-one Norman cheeses.
Les Fromages Normands (the norman cheeses)
(on the "Ma normandie") theme by R. Girardeau |
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I
Bondon, Bondart et Triple Bonde,
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II Les vrais amateurs du bon bère
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III Les Hayons et la Providence
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Unfortunately even this is imperfect because others also evoked Trouville, Quitteboeuf and so on ... So let's try to build a short list of them...
The four "references" :
- Camembert [1]
- Neufchâtel [2]
- Livarot [3]
- Pont-L'évêque [4]
and the others :
Bondard (see Neufchâtel), Bondon (see Neufchâtel), Boursin [5], Bricquebec [6], Brillat-Savarin (see Excelsior) [9], Brique de Lisieux, Carré de Bray [12], Coeur de Bray (see Neufchâtel), Coutances [7], Demi-sel (see Carré de Bray), Excelsior, Fin de siècle, Gournay (see Neufchâtel) [10], La Bouille & Mr Fromage [11], Malakoff (see Neufchâtel), Mignot (see Livarot), Pavé d'Auge [8], Petit-Lisieux (see Livarot), Petit-Suisse.
