Cheeses of Camembert
A tiny village in the Pays d'Auge whose name went round the world on a small, soft, white-rinded cheese in a wooden box.
Made, aged and sold here
Best time: April to October, with orchards in blossom in spring.
Camembert is a hamlet of fewer than two hundred people in the hills of the Pays d'Auge, in southern Normandy. Local tradition says Marie Harel, a farmer's wife here, made the first Camembert around 1791. The cheese spread with the railways to Paris, and the poplar-wood box, introduced in the 1890s, carried it much further. Raw milk Camembert de Normandie is still made in the region.
The cheese
Camembert is a soft cow's milk cheese, ladled into moulds, drained, salted and left to grow a white bloomy rind. The protected Camembert de Normandie must be made from raw milk of Normandy cows, its curd ladled by hand in several layers. Young, it is chalky in the centre; ripe, it is soft through, smelling of mushrooms and cream.
The village and the Pays d'Auge
The village has a small museum house dedicated to the cheese, a church and farmhouses scattered over the hills. Nearby Vimoutiers has a statue of Marie Harel and a Camembert museum. The surrounding Pays d'Auge is a landscape of half-timbered farms, apple orchards and Normandy cows, also home to Livarot and Pont-l'Évêque.
A trail idea for Camembert
- Camembert village The hamlet on its hill, with its cheese museum house.
- Vimoutiers The statue of Marie Harel and the Camembert museum.
- A Pays d'Auge farm Taste raw-milk Camembert and cider where farm visits are offered.
- Livarot Continue to the next cheese village in the valley.
Written by the EveryCheese desk with AI assistance. Background: "Camembert, Orne" on Wikipedia. Opening hours, markets, caves and tours change; check locally before travelling. If something is wrong, tell us.
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