Melun in Brie
Melun is a nice town, on the Seine River, about 41 kilometres southeast of Paris. One of the highlights of local life is the Gaillardon Market, on Wednesday and Saturday mornings.
So I went along to the market this morning to do some research on the cheese known as the Brie de Melun, for which the town is most famous.
Brie de Melun is made from cow’s milk and is considered to be the king of cheeses. It is a soft cheese with a bloomy rind and comes in the form of a disc, with a diameter of 27 to 28 cm, with a straw yellow paste.
Even for a neophyte like me, the difference between the Brie de Melun and Brie de Meaux, the other great Brie cheese, is quite obvious. The Brie de Melun has more colour and is smaller. The Brie de Melun also has much stronger and complex aromas, and a stronger flavour.
I was expecting the locals at the market to be chauvinistic in their opinions about Brie de Melun. But I was wrong.
At the first cheese stand I visited, the fromager simply said “it is up to you”, whether you prefer Brie de Melun or Brie de Meaux (see photo of a man cutting cheese).
At the second stand, the young lady confessed that she preferred Brie de Meaux, even though she comes from Melun (see photo of young lady presenting me with a tasting portion of cheese). I also prefer Brie de Meaux.
Like many such markets in France, there was a cafe/bar. I fully expected them to serve sandwiches made from Brie de Melun. But no, they only had sandwiches made from Camembert cheese, Brie’s competitor from Normandy.
Reluctantly I had a Camembert sandwich. To the horror of the serveuse, I had a glass of Gewürztraminer wine, not her recommended red wine. I think that rich, sweet and spicy flavours of Gewürztraminer go well with a rich and creamy Camembert.
I did strike up a nice conversation at the cafe/bar with a local guy. In a France where many are critical of immigration, he lamented the Africanisation of Melun. He did however confess that most of his friends were immigrants, and that the happiest period of his life was when he was an “immigrant” in Réunion Island, a French department in the Indian Ocean.
In sum, my excursion today confirmed one again how much France is a country of paradoxes.