Jennifer Greco Shares Her Love for French Cheese Culture in Paris

On a recent afternoon in Paris, I spent three glorious hours tasting a panoply of cheeses in a class led by French cheese expert, Jennifer Greco. Read more about her background and her quest to taste every one of France’s almost 2000 different cheeses. The class was informative, entertaining, and delicious. Greco is extremely knowledgeable about cheese-related topics, and her explanations are accessible.

 

My class was on a Friday, and it was hard to believe it was her 4th class in a row. She seemed fresh and genuinely interested in making connections with her students, from the amateur cheesemaker to the restaurant sommelier, to the mom and daughters who just love cheese. One might assume that she shops in bulk for cheeses to supply her week of classes. But because of her reverence for ripeness, she says, “I shop the morning of each class for that day, visiting 6 or 7 cheese shops. Things like Brie and Camembert, if they’re underripe you can’t eat them, and we would just have to wait a couple of days. Then there’s seasonality, plus the cheese shops change their inventory all the time.”

 

A Paris classroom in a wine shop

A lovely room in the rear of Cavewoman Wines was the setting for our class. Its owner, Alison Eastaway, supplies the accompanying wines. (The clever name hints that over 80% of the wines she carries are made by women winemakers or women-owned domains.)

Greco had laid out a dozen different cheeses in an intriguing variety of shapes and colors, accompanied by fresh strawberries, two kinds of bread, and of course, wine glasses to enjoy the accompanying pours. The intimate class numbers a maximum of eight people.

As we settle in and gaze at the 12 cheeses spread out before us, Greco cautions us, “This is a marathon, not a sprint, so pace yourselves.” She adds that we should have no compunction to finish (or like) any of the cheeses. And if one particularly pungent specimen offends our palate, she will obligingly remove it from our plate.

The first topic Greco delves into is the seasonality of cheese, and being late April, that it is the best time to enjoy fresh goat cheeses. Even teaching four or more classes a week, her enthusiasm for her subject is still strong. She marvels that these dozen cheeses were still in the form of milk just a few weeks ago and are a reflection what the goats, cows or sheep have been eating. Read Jennifer Greco’s story on seasonality in French cheese.

 

Tasting, Learning & Liking

As for tasting tips, she advises smelling the cheese first, tasting it by itself, before pairing with wine, bread, or fruit. Regarding rinds, she counsels, “if you can bite through it, you can eat it.” But she is also very flexible and doesn’t force anyone to eat anything they don’t want.

Before we start on the goat cheeses, she asks our class of eight, including a couple from Australia and others from across the US, if anyone has strong feelings about goat cheese. This writer enthusiastically answers that it’s her favorite type, while a participant from Australia strongly asserts that he doesn’t like goat cheese at all. Eventually, he delights Greco and surprises himself to discover that he has enjoyed each of the goat cheeses we sampled. Greco admits she loves surprising her guests. “People have ideas of what cheese will taste like when you show them things covered in herbs or something they think is too runny or too smelly. But then they taste it and it’s a revelation, I just love that. It’s fun to see people get excited.”

 

She points out on a map of France where each cheese is from and notes how the terroir influences the taste. She discusses different types of rinds (natural, bloomy, washed, herb covered, moldy, stinky, those that include cheese mites). As we smelled the rind of a camembert from Normandie, some likened its aroma to Brussel sprouts or even old socks. She also explains the role of affineur, who oversees the aging of cheeses to perfection.

Although each class features a different selection of cheeses, Greco follows the same progression, starting with the mildest and working up to the strongest, which is usually blue. She understands her guests’ varied experience with cheese and says, “I try to get at least one thing that people know, like a gruyere or Swiss. Not everything has to be a challenge. I just want to include a few cheeses outside people’s comfort zone.”

(If you go, know that most of her selection may be cheeses you’ve never tasted before and may have trouble finding outside of France.)

 

Fabulous French Cheeses to Savor

Our tastes included: Goat milk cheeses aged from two weeks to two months. (Rouelle du Tarn, Chabichou du Poitou AOP, Bouton de Culotte), bloomy rind, rich and creamy cheeses (Brillat-Savarin, Camembert de Normandie AOC), a cooked, pressed cow cheese (Beaufort Chalet d’Alpage AOC), an uncooked, pressed sheep and goat cheese (Broucaou), washed rind cheeses (La Manigodine, Époisses AOP), a natural rind sheep cheese with wild herbs (Fleur du Maquis aux Herbes) and a rich, mild and creamy blue cheese paired with quince jam. (Fourme d’Ambert AOC). Learn more a Chabichou du Poitou AOP.

Accompanying wines included rosé, white, red, and champagne. Greco likened the crémant (or champagne)’s effervescence to “scrubbing bubbles” that clear your palate after particularly rich cheeses. Lastly, Sauternes offered a sweet counterbalance to the strong taste of the blue cheese. Greco was and continues to be a featured teacher at Paris by Mouth where she takes guests on a field trip to a cheese shop, Laurent Dubois, and then does a shorter tasting. She just started leading her independent cheese classes in April 2023. Her goal is to open people’s minds and get them out of their comfort zone. “My guests often tell me they always buy the same two cheeses because they don’t know what they’re looking at,” she says. “There are so many great artisan producers all over the world. I feel passionate about these producers. It’s a great profession. I don’t want to be a farmer and produce the cheeses, but I do want to promote them. It’s a labor of love for them—and for me.”

Details for signing up are on her blog, Chez Lou Lou.