A Question for Fancy Cheese Eaters....

[Grand_Duchess-Elizaveta]

LOL. I know, this is a heavy subject of debate...:D

Are you supposed to eat the rind around the cheese? Someone gave me some Brie cheese. It has a thick rind on it that looks really unappetizing. I've been cutting around it, but I was just wondering if people actually eat that part....:scratch:

[nutroll]

Lots of people eat the rind, myself included. It won't hurt you, but if it's unappetizing, you don't have to.

[Matrona]

According to my French host family, brie and camembert rind is edible. :thumbsup:

I had to coax my mother into doing this after I came back and insisted that we take to eating French cheese. :)

[Dewi Sant]

Personally, I don't like the rind. I like my cheese to be as soft as possible. So that it almost melts in my mouth.

[choirfiend]

Brie doesnt really have a "rind," just a coating. You're definitely supposed to eat it (French ppl, and cheese officianatos sp? will look at you very funny if you don't.) It doesn't really have any taste or anything upsetting like that. But, for me, in the comfort of my own home, I will trim off the waxy coating because I enjoy the completely smooth texture more. In public, I may just suck it up and eat it.

Brie has so much of a "non rind" compared to other French cheeses. WHen I was visiting my friend Armelle in France, I took tiny slivers of each cheese when the platter was passed around because I knew I would only like some of them. Brie is edible to EVERYONE, and I would much rather eat the whole brie with rind than eat some of the cheeses that were passed around. I honestly couldn't put them in my mouth (though I tried) because they are aged and smell so strongly of BARNYARD! Ygggg. They smell like cow patties.

Brie is a cake walk compared to Barnyard cheese.

ps. Dont ever slice a wheel/triangle of cheese any way but by taking slices from it the same way you would cut a pie. The center of a round cheese is the softest, most delicately flavored part, and just cutting a chunk from the cheese(typically cutting the tip of the triangle off, since it is convinient) is poor manners, equatable to taking all of the icing roses off a cake and putting them on your plate or something:)

[ByzantineDixie]

LOL. I know, this is a heavy subject of debate...:D

Are you supposed to eat the rind around the cheese? Someone gave me some Brie cheese. It has a thick rind on it that looks really unappetizing. I've been cutting around it, but I was just wondering if people actually eat that part....:scratch:

Some French cheese rind shouldn't be eaten...some can (as with brie rind). I think you have to be French to know which is which. It's genetically encoded information.

[nutroll]

ps. Dont ever slice a wheel/triangle of cheese any way but by taking slices from it the same way you would cut a pie. The center of a round cheese is the softest, most delicately flavored part, and just cutting a chunk from the cheese(typically cutting the tip of the triangle off, since it is convinient) is poor manners, equatable to taking all of the icing roses off a cake and putting them on your plate or something:)

I do both of those things! No wonder I never get invited to parties anymore.

[Grand_Duchess-Elizaveta]

Brie doesnt really have a "rind," just a coating. You're definitely supposed to eat it (French ppl, and cheese officianatos sp? will look at you very funny if you don't.) It doesn't really have any taste or anything upsetting like that. But, for me, in the comfort of my own home, I will trim off the waxy coating because I enjoy the completely smooth texture more. In public, I may just suck it up and eat it.

Brie has so much of a "non rind" compared to other French cheeses. WHen I was visiting my friend Armelle in France, I took tiny slivers of each cheese when the platter was passed around because I knew I would only like some of them. Brie is edible to EVERYONE, and I would much rather eat the whole brie with rind than eat some of the cheeses that were passed around. I honestly couldn't put them in my mouth (though I tried) because they are aged and smell so strongly of BARNYARD! Ygggg. They smell like cow patties.

Hmm. This is not just a thin wax coating. It has this coating (waxy), but then underneath it is another coating of something that looks almost like grey cardboard. I tasted part of the waxy coating and didn't like the taste of it. I didn't want to try the grey cardboard-looking stuff. The cheese itself is delicious, though.

[choirfiend]

It should look like this, and it should all be edible...
http://www.johnsandell.co.uk/photography/photos/brie1.jpg