Caprice des Dieux

If you've met me, you'll know that I like cheese. I eat lots of it, buy lots of it, talk incessantly about it - I used my holiday allowance this year to live on a goat farm making (and eating) cheese. In fact, this blog was almost a cheese blog. In retrospect, it's definitely for the best that it isn't restricted to cheese and it's much more fun sharing it with Jen than it would have been going it on my own.

I do still want to write about cheese though, and this will be the first of many cheesy posts...

Caprice des Dieux is one of the few good mass produced French industriel (factory) cheeses that have made it across the channel to UK supermarkets (I found this one in a big Sainsburys). It's very recognisable in it's oval blue and white box. If you've been to France, you can pick these up all over the place, they aren't top of the range but they put a lot of the soft cheese found in our supermarkets to shame (I'm looking at you  Le Rustique).


The piece that I photo'd is under-ripe, the softer cheese nearest the skin should be a bit more mobile and the harder centre a little less chalky. Rather against conventional dairy purchasing wisdom, when buying a cheese like this, you want to look for the one nearest it's sell by date. If there are a few, prod them to find the softest.

The cheese is soft, light and very creamy - they actually add cream to the milk when they make it. There's just a hint of bitterness and a fair amount of salt, to be honest, it's not that far from butter. The rind is papery and dry, it barely has a taste, I think 'floury' is the correct adjective. This is an incredibly accessible cheese, no pungency, no challenge, just soft, salty creaminess.

In terms of wine matching, I would suggest a light, sharp white, you don't want to hide the flavour, subtle as it is. Not having wine, I matched it with a bottle of Becks - not traditional but I'm making no apologies.