Le coulommiers, ou « petit brie »

Note: see paragraph about comments on Blogger at the end of this post.

The other day I was at SuperU and browsing through the cheese section. There are two cheese sections, actually — one is for fromages à la coupe (cheese "cut to order"), and the other is for pre-packaged cheeses. Looking at packaged cheeses, I noticed the cheese below, called Petit Brie.

Above is a photo of the Petit Brie cheese next to a standard-size camembert, just to give you a sense of scale. I bought the Petit Brie partly because in recent comments we have discussed cheese prices in the U.S. vs. in France. My old friend CHM said he had bought a U.S.-made Brie for something like $16.00 — I think it weighed 13 oz. This French-made Petit Brie weighs 500 grams (nearly 18 oz.) and cost me the princely sum of 2.80€ — $3.15 US at today's rate. (The standard French Camembert weighs 250 grams.)

Doing some googling and reading this morning, I've learned a few things. The Petit Brie I bought is what is called a fromage industriel or fromage laitier, made in a plant, factory, or big dairy. That doesn't mean it's not good. It's made from pasteurized milk produced by dairy farmers in Brittany — far from the Brie region, which is just east of Paris. Again, that doesn't mean it's not good. Like Camembert, Brie is not a "protected" name, so it can be made anywhere (even in the U.S.) and carry the name Brie.

The other thing I learned is that Petit Brie is another name for the cheese called Coulommiers, which is usually lumped in with other Brie cheeses but is not exactly like other Brie cheeses. And Coulommiers is also not a protected name, so it can be made anywhere. The full name of the cheese is petit brie de Coulommiers, and around the town of Coulommiers in Brie, 30 miles east of Paris, farmers make petit brie using local, raw (unpasteurized) cow's milk.

In the Middle Ages, dairy farmers around Coulommiers started making this smaller version of Brie cheese because it was easier to ship and less susceptible to damage than the thinner, bigger Brie cheeses made in the nearby towns of Meaux and Melun. Brie de Meaux and brie de Melun actually are protected names (appellation d'origine protégée, or AOP), as is camembert de Normandie.

Anyway, I plan to cook this Petit Brie I bought. I'll make a tartiflette-like gratin de pommes de terre with Petit Brie cheese melted over it. I see many recipes for that kind Brie gratin on the internet.

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A frequent commenter here sent me an e-mail yesterday to tell me she hasn't been able to leave a comment recently. Her comments just vanish into thin air. I've made a change to my blog layout to see if it helps. Comments will now appear in a pop-up window rather than being embedded in blog posts. I've also read that browser security settings might be the cause of difficulties placing comments. I'm not sure I understand all the issues, but I'll keep reading about them. Some browsers, notably Safari on both MacOS and iOS, are less cooperative with Blogger than other browsers are. I don't use devices that run MacOS or iOS, so I'm not an expert. I know people running Windows also have commenting problems — I do too.