The Carre4 in Torigni-s-Vire is, of course, in Camembert country and the cheese chiller shows it. I’d say there are 2,5 metres, full height, of variations on a theme of Camembert, 0,5m Pont l’Eveque and other similar Norman cheeses and 0,5m the rest - all French. In vain I sought Parmesan, not even those awful packets of pre-ground yellow dust.
When I lived in Calvados in the 70 s my girlfriend worked in an indépendant run Camembert factory. Every Friday the management gave each employee a couple of ´samples’ for the weekend.
Fortunately she worked in the office Graham and a shower a day did the job. I don’t know what sort of relationship we would have had if she had been on the production line !
I actually preferred Pont l’Eveque but didn’t have the heart to tell her…
I thought I prefered Pont L’Eveque, too. I bought one of each. Crikey O’Riley! That P. L’Evq is mighty! Straight out of the box, from the fridge, it is Old Sox with added festering trainers. I s’pose I will have to try to find a less pungent one but meantime I could be enjoying some moderately cheesy Camembert.
A pal worked at the Young’s Brewery at Chiswick. In their weekly pay packets - those little brown envelopes of the distant past - was a brass token. This dispensed 1/2 pint Young’s bitter from a machine.
My pal was never a drinker of bitter. He tossed his tokens into his sock drawer [to keep the cheese gag running]. When he finally left Youngs we gathered up some flagons and made him dispense his entire collection of tokens into them. We ended up with 3-4 galls of a very good bitter.
I prefer Cantal myself, the closest thing to Cheddar I can find. Bleu d’Auvergne from time to time but, as it is not anywhere near as good as Stilton, not often. Also in this non-alcoholic household, it doesn’t seem right without Port, which I can’t have. ;-(
A pal worked at the Young’s Brewery at Chiswick. In their weekly pay packets - those little brown envelopes of the distant past - was a brass token. This dispensed 1/2 pint Young’s bitter from a machine.
I worked for a day for Resch’s (Sp?) brewery in Sydney driving a small lorry up and down to Darling Habour Goods Yard. After each trip the forkie gave me a chit to take to their own work’s bar. There I would be supplied with a pint (yes, in Oz ) of ice cold beer to drink while I was reloaded. As it was extremely hot I accepted, but I did 10 trips that day.
Hah! Next you’ll be wanting Spanish wine! Or indeed any non French wine…
The supermarkets here are good at favouring local products, but generally have a pretty good range of French cheeses, plus grano padiano, parmesan, mozzarella etc. The cheese counter is the same size as the fish counter, and there is a cheese rayon as well. However we find that the best cheeses are from the market or a fromagerie.
Have you got a Grand Frais near you? They always sell an array of cheeses from all over the world, even British cheeses and most definitely Parmesan. Failing that, Lidl sell a passable Parmesan.
Izzy x
Very happy with almost everything eatable in FR, inc wine - esp wh wine. One of the highlights of my wine drinking life was a glass of Ch d’Yquem. That and a bottle of Ch Lynch Bages 1966.
I go for ‘les petites danseuses’ in garlic butter and ditto escargots - so, pretty much all except andouillette.
But there is no sub for P/san.
I just worked out that the 5l box of perfectly slurpable Pay 'Oc rouge costs me the same as I was paying per bottle in SP: 1,85€. [How the mighty expense account wallah has fallen] The whisky I was buying in SP is on sale here at x2 the price.
I think it’s the small/medium size of my nearest Carre4, a ‘Market’, that’s the problem. Lack of space/local preferences. There’s a Hyper size Eric the Cleric at Agneau, on the S.E. edge of St. Lo. - 20 mins. I shall have a trundle up there to check it all out.
And I will report back to Stella when I find P/san. We can’t keep her in M.I mode, waiting to know. I see on line that Eric the Cleric has it .
Grand Frais is on the NW outskirts of Caen - 50 mins. Worth popping in if happening that way but not under l/down.
Somerset being the Land of My Fathers, Cheddar is dear to my heart. Nothing beats the bite of a mature Cheddar.
Bio-Paleolithic side note.
When they found a 10,000 year old skelliebone in Cheddar Gorge, back-long, for a bit of fun they ran his DNA against the DNA of the children at Cheddar Primary School. No children matched his DNA - but the teacher’s did! That man’s family had been local to Cheddar for 10,000 years!
All these recommendations are fine, I’m sure, but all my shopping is local, and that means Auchan’s small supermarket and the local boulangerie.
I could make an exception on our trip to Perigueux tomorrow, but that would mean a strange, to me, store. And if there is one thing I hate more than shopping, it is shopping in a place where I don’t know where everything is. Apart from the queue at the tills I can wizz round my local in 15 minutes flat, and even that is too much for me.