Foire aux Fromages de Livarot

Cheeses for Foire aux Fromages de Livarot

Livarot, in the Pays d'Auge of Normandy, has held a cheese fair on the first weekend of August since 1989. About eighty stallholders sell cheese, cider, calvados and local food, and the best-known event is a contest to eat a whole Livarot in the shortest time. Livarot is a washed-rind cow's-milk cheese with an orange rind and a strong smell, ringed by five strips of sedge or paper that earned it the nickname of the Colonel, after the stripes on a colonel's sleeve. Its neighbours from the same pastures, Pont-l'Évêque and Camembert, are sold beside it.

The cheeses

LivarotThe striped washed-rind cheese the fair is named for.Pont-l'ÉvêqueThe square washed-rind cheese of the Pays d'Auge.CamembertNormandy's best-known soft cheese, from nearby.