num_pages: 274
description: An Amazon 2013 Best of the Year PickThe French sans doute  love their fromages . And theres much to hundreds of gloriously pungent varietiescrumbly creamy buttery even shot through with bottle-green mold. So many varieties in fact that the aspiring gourmand may How does one make sense of it all?In The Whole Fromage  Kathe Lison sets out to learn what makes French cheese so remarkablewhy France is the Cheese Mother Ship in the words of one American expert. Her journey takes her to cheese caves tucked within the craggy volcanic rock of Auvergne to a centuries-old monastery in the French Alps and to the farmlands that keep cheesemaking traditions alive . She meets the dairy scientists shepherds and affineurs who make up the world of modern French cheese and whose lifestyles and philosophies are as varied and flavorful as the delicacies they produce. Most delicious of all she meets the cheeses themselvesfrom spruce-wrapped Mont dOr so gooey its best eaten with a spoon; to luminous Beaufort redolent of Alpine grasses and wildflowers a single round of which can weigh as much as a Saint Bernard; to Camembert invented in Normandy but beloved and imitated across the world. With writing as piquant and rich as a well-aged Roquefort as charming as a tender springtime chvre  and yet as unsentimental as a stinky Maroilles The Whole Fromage is a tasty exploration of one of the great culinary treasures of France.
language: English
title: The Whole Fromage: Adventures in the Delectable World of French Cheese
publisher: Crown