The 5 Stinkiest Cheeses in France


Why are some French cheeses so…smelly? Does a strong smell mean a strong taste? Here are some of the strongest-smelling cheeses of France.

Some cheeses have a distinctive, shall we say, aroma. And why not? Cheese is old milk, after all. But why do some cheeses have a strong smell and not others? It comes down to the way they are made.

Cheese starts as milk — cow, sheep or goat — to which cultures of bacteria are added. Certain cheeses rely heavily on brevibacterium linens (b. linens) which is also the bacteria responsible for, yes, body odor. So when someone describes a cheese as smelling like old gym socks, they’re not kidding!

B. linens thrives in moisture, which is why hard cheeses have mild odors while moister, creamier cheeses are often the strongest smelling. Not only that, some cheeses have their rinds washed throughout the aging process, keeping them moist — a perfect environment for b. linens to go forth and multiply.

And then there’s mold, the not-so-secret ingredient behind some of the world’s most odiferous cheeses. “Moldy” is not what most people consider a good smell. And when mold is put into a cheese, like the famous bleus of France, and then left in a moist cave to ripen for months… mon dieu, open the window so we can get some fresh air!

Is a strong smell the mark of a strong cheese? Not necessarily. Some cheeses, like the famous Époisses of Burgundy, have pungent odors but mild tastes. This is true of many washed-rind cheeses, where the powerful aroma comes from the rind and not the creamy interior. Blue cheeses are a different matter because the mold is throughout the cheese, giving every bite a strong flavor. Continue reading “The 5 Stinkiest Cheeses in France” →

Chanson du Jour: “J’ai Deux Amours”

Madeleine Peyroux

On dit qu’au delà des mers
Là-bas sous le ciel clair
Il existe une cité
Au séjour enchanté
Et sous les grands arbres noirs
Chaque soir
Vers elle s’en va tout mon espoir
J’ai deux amours
Mon pays et Paris
Par eux toujours
Mon cœur est ravi
Ma savane est belle
Mais à quoi bon le nier
Ce qui m’ensorcelle
C’est Paris, Paris tout entier
Le voir un jour
C’est mon rêve joli
J’ai deux amours
Mon pays et Paris
Quand sur la rive parfois
Au lointain j’aperçois
Un paquebot qui s’en va
Vers lui je tends les bras
Et le cœur battant d’émoi
A mi-voix
Doucement je dis “emporte-moi !”
J’ai deux amours….

Watch this: Dardenne brothers’ “Young Ahmet” is now streaming online

YOUNG AHMED (2020) Stream on Criterion Channel; rent on Amazon, Google Play, iTunes, Vudu and YouTube. 

A bespectacled Belgian teenager gets swept up by radicalism in this most recent film from the brothers Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne. The teenager, a 13-year-old named Ahmed (Idir Ben Addi), falls under the influence of an extremist imam (Othmane Moumen). As Ahmed grows apart from his family, his attention falls on his math tutor, Inès (Myriem Akheddiou) — a fixation that leads to catastrophe. “The plot may hinge on Ahmed’s actions and motivations,” A.O. Scott wrote in his review for The New York Times, “but the film’s real drama revolves around a central moral and political conflict, between religious extremism and a humanist ethos that is more behavioral than doctrinal.”

NY Times
Dardenne Brothers

Green wave as environmentalists win key cities in French local elections

A green wave has swept France as the environmentalist party and its left-wing allies won control of major cities including Lyon, Strasbourg and Bordeaux in local elections, allowing the Greens to up pressure on President Emmanuel Macron for his meeting with members of the Citizen’s Convention on Climate on Monday. 

Europe Ecology, The Greens party (EELV) took control of key cities including Lyon, Bordeaux and Strasbourg.

They also won the smaller cities of Besancon, Tours, Poitiers and Annecy, hung on to Grenoble and became a power-broker in Marseille.

Having endorsed the Paris socialist Mayor Anne Hidalgo, the Greens also played an important role in ensuring her re-election with 48.7 percent of the vote.

EELV described the results as “historic”.

“Today, ecology is taking a big step. A giant step,” the party’s secretary Julien Bayou said in a statement, adding that “it is THE mandate to act on climate and social justice,” echoing a tweet by Green MEPs.

“The French are ready for change. Great, so are we,” he said.

The election was marked by record-high abstention rate of 59 percent.

President Macron expressed his concern and acknowledged that the elections were marked by a “green wave”, the presidency said.

Upping the pressure

Green MEP Yannick Jadot said the results proved that Macron had been “in denial” over growing public demand for ambitious measures to fight climate change.

He told Europe 1 radio EELV would not join Macron’s government as part of a widely-expected cabinet shake-up, saying instead the president should enact “as he promised” 149 measures proposed this month by his Citizen’s Convention on Climate.

Macron is to meet the council’s members on Monday where he plans a “first response” to their proposals, including reducing motorway speed limits and making “ecocide” a crime.

The Covid effect

Jadot described EELV’s strong results as a “political turning point for our country,” with a landscape “recomposed around ecology”.

In an interview with Le Monde he attributed the party’s good performance both to “the government’s powerlessness and lack of options [proposed] on ecological and social issues, and the vertical nature of its governance”.

The run-off local poll had been delayed by three months due to the two-month lockdown imposed in France.

While the record high abstention rate was in part due to fears over transmission of the coronavirus, the lockdown itself may also explain the Greens’ good score.

“Ecology is central to any reading of the epidemic,” political scientist Jerôme Fourquet told Le Monde.

For him, a lot of discussion centred around  “questions of  lifestyle and consumer habits which are putting our ecosystems under strain”.

“Lockdown acted as an accelerator,” he said “with people asking for more localism and a slowdown in the frenzy of consumerism. The lockdown period reinforced EELV themes.”

Source: Green wave as environmentalists win key cities in French local elections

Actress ‘proud’ she walked out of French Oscars over Polanski

Actress ‘proud’ she walked out of French Oscars over Polanski

Actress Noemie Merlant has absolutely no regrets about walking out of the French Oscars after Roman Polanski won best director to cap what was perhaps the most bitter and fractious awards ceremony in French cinema history.

Merlant followed her “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” co-star Adele Haenel nd the acclaimed movie’s director Celine Sciamma, to the exit after Polanski won best film for “An Officer and a Spy”.

Haenel cried “Shame!” as they left, furious that the Cesars academy had honoured a man still wanted in the US for the statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl in 1977, and who has since had to deny several claims of sexual assault.

Haenel — a key figure in the French #MeToo movement, who last year revealed that she had been sexually harassed by a director as a teenager — had declared that “distinguishing Polanski is spitting in the face of all victims”.

“I am proud that I left with my comrades,” Merlant said of the dramatic night four months ago, which caused an earthquake in the French industry.

– ‘It had to happen’ –

“I think it is good that it caused a stir, that it started a debate.

“The world is changing, and going forward,” the actress told AFP.

“Now we are standing up and we are walking out when things have to change. It’s something I think that has to happen,” said Merlant, who made her breakthrough playing a woman radicalised by the Islamic State in the 2016 film, “Le Ciel Attendra” (Heaven Can Wait).

“Maybe five or 10 years ago, I wouldn’t have done it,” the actress admitted. But after working with “lots of female directors I began to ask myself some quite perturbing questions about women’s lives, about what they wanted to say, and their choices.”

Merlant, 31, said that while the Cesars ceremony was “extremely stormy”.

“I feel deep down that it opened up some things, both in the profession” and beyond it, even “among families and friends”.

– Younger generation shocked –

“It is something that people want to talk about — and even when people don’t want to talk about it, that too is interesting,” said Merlant, who was nominated for a best actress Cesar with Haenel.

“As women speak up, it allows you to ask questions about ourselves,” the actress said. “This is also why so many of this new generation of (women) are shocked” and angry about cases like Polanski’s.

Having worked with a lot of woman directors, Merlant said she has been lucky to star in so many female-driven stories.

“Up to know, I think the women that I played were not objects but the subject, and I want to keep it that way,” said the actress, the star of the new French film “Jumbo”, in which she plays a loner who forms a strange attraction to a fairground ride.

“I really love to go out of my comfort zone and to take on roles and stories that scare me, that take me somewhere else,” said Merlant told AFP in March, before the release of the film was delayed by the French lockdown.

 

Source: Actress ‘proud’ she walked out of French Oscars over Polanski – RFI

France’s Assa Traore honoured for her anti-racism activism at BET Awards

International activist Assa Traore, whose brother Adama was killed in French police custody four years ago, was given the BET Global Good award on Sunday.

Traore thanked BET, an American television channel dedicated to African-American and minority people, for the award, calling it “an acknowledgment of our fight.”

“It’s an acknowledgment for all the victims, for all the families who keep fighting for truth and justice,” she said in a video message played during the virtual awards ceremony.

The award is “BET International’s recognition of public figures who use their platform for social responsibility and goodness while demonstrating a commitment to the welfare of the global Black community,” according to the channel’s website.

Before her brother’s death, Traore, who has been dubbed the French Angela Davis after the US political activist, had never been someone who campaigned for a cause.

But the 35-year-old mother of three was thrust into the heart of the global fight against police violence and racism by the death in Minneapolis police custody last month of George Floyd.

For four years, she campaigned, organized demonstrations, spoke out publicly and gave numerous interviews after alleging her brother was killed by the police. An investigation is still ongoing.

For a long time, the “Adama fight” remained a local battle unnoticed outside France. But the death of George Floyd has catapulted it into the global consciousness.

Thousands of people demonstrated in Paris in early June and hundreds of others took to the streets across France against racism.

“In the name of my brother, I will change everything I can change,” Traore told AFP on Saturday.

Source: France’s Assa Traore honoured for her anti-racism activism at BET Awards