Cheese is probably my favourite food. It’s not really fair to say that because there are so many different cheeses – everything from stinky old washed rind to a mild creamy feta – and I love them all. Having lived in France, the range of cheese available in Australia is a bit sad, but there is joy to be found. One of those happened this evening: I finished my gig, popped into the supermarket to pick up some bread for school lunches tomorrow, and stumbled across a stack of seriously discounted King Island Camembert.
Now the joy here is not really about the price. It’s about ripeness. The cheese was cheap because the ‘best before’ date is tomorrow. What Australian supermarketeers don’t understand is that for camembert it should actually say ‘best after’. Any earlier than that date and the cheese is underripe, like a green banana. This means that all the camembert in the supermarket needs to be matured in your fridge for weeks or months after purchase. Courtesy of tonight’s late night shopping, I now have a stack of camembert in my fridge that is perfect for eating this week – soft and creamy, and if you let it warm up a little it will become gooey. Heaven!
