L'histoire du fromage de la Préhistoire à aujourd'hui en passant par toutes les époques.

"Forma – formage  – fromaige – fromage"

Cheese is the oldest of all the man made foods; it even appeared before bread and wine!

The oldest document mentioning cheese is engraved on the stele of the king of Babylon, Hammourabi, who rained from 1792 to 1750 BC.

It is thought that during the centuries between the fall of the Roman Empire and the end of the Barbarian invasion, cheese was imported by the occupants.

Thanks to the new prosperity in Europe, cheese becomes more diversified in the large urban centres.

The Encyclopedia or Dictionary of reason from sceience, art and crafts, edited between 1751 and 1772 under the direction of Diderot D’Alembert described at length the cheeses of that time.

Cheese was still a substitute for meat , because of its price. It did not appear definitively on the tables of the French until just before the 19th Century.  

At the dawn of the 20th Century, cheese production in France now boasts many cheeses amongst which there are those whose reputation says it all: Maroilles, Brie, Neufchâtel en Bray,  Camembert, Roquefort,  Bleu de Sassenage.

Le marché du fromage en France est trés important dans l'économie.

The history of cheese is a bit like the history of France. It crosses the paths of Charlemagne and Napoleon, combines with the religious aspects and the evolution of scientific research.

The long history, local area, notoriety and the savoir-faire all form the identity of a region.

Many of the techniques of production were developed empirically and often were not written down.

The Naturalist Pliny the Elder (23AD) and his 'Naturalis Historia'

Autonomous and responsable, the cheese producer has developped a reactivity and an imprtant open mindedness linking with external professionals to develop the savoir-faire methods.

French cheeses and gastronomy are undeniably part of the living legacy of humanity.

The Brie de Meaux is a cheese from a large mould, With a diametre of 35cm. Known of since the Middle-Ages, enjoyed by many Kings of France and celebrated by many writers, Brie experienced its moment of glory when at the Congress in Vienna, in 1815. At a grand banquet uniting ambassadors from gouvernements all over the Europe, each ambassador was served their favourite cheese. The Austrian Chancellor, Matternich, exclaimed that the Brie de Meaux was the ’Prince of cheeses.’

The name of the Gruyere cheese appears as Gruiere in 1655, which comes from the Gruyere, the district in the canton of Fribourg, where it was made.

Comté cheese has been a shared legacy for centuries. Comté is the product of the link between man and the land. When it is made according to the traditional methods, each round of cheese expresses the cheese dairy from which it was made, it’s exact area of production, the season in which it was made, and the particular savoir-faire methods of it’s master cheese maker and master affineur.

In Auvergne, the cheeses produced there are part of its legacy just as much as the Roman churches and thermal baths. The cheeses of this region have been enjoyed since ancient times, where the Arvernes amazed the Romans with the quality of their cheeses.

Made in the Haute-Auvergne, the ‘green region’ with its fertile pasture, the 2000 year old Cantal cheese is the oldest of all the cheeses.

When the valley of Padania was cleared, the Benedictine and Cistercian monks began to transform milk into large rounds of cheese which could be matured for a long time. Parmigiano originates from more than nine centuries ago.

L'histoire du Camembert commence en Normandie au XVIIIeme avec l'histoire de Marie Harel.