"Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are" -Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin.
Leave it to the French to pioneer the gastronomic writing genre, sometimes stereotypes just write themselves. When today's hero walked the earth he certainly made his mark as a foodie. Between learning 5 languages, playing as a professional violinist, traveling and living in the US (to be fair it wasn't by choice; he was fleeing the French Revolution), and later serving as a judge back in France, Brillat-Savarin wrote the authoritative work on food snobbery: Physiologie du goût (The Physiology of Taste). For this, along with such quotes as
"Those persons who suffer from indigestion, or who become drunk, are utterly ignorant of the true principles of eating and drinking",
Brillat-Savarin earned the admiration of another giant in the French food scene; Henri Androuët. When Androuët created a decadent triple-creme brie in the early 1930s he named it after his hero, and so Brillat-Savarin was (re?)born. Another cream-injected, 75% fat dessert brie, this pasteurized cheese can be found with relative ease in the US and I've yet to meet anyone who's not a fan.
Milk: Cow, pasteurized
Rennet: Animal
Affinage: This cheese is ready to eat just as soon as the curd "blondes up", or becomes a smooth and sturdy paste. The process of getting it to America means you'll be lucky to find it in the 1-2 weeks stage, but it will be delicious at any age. Just avoid any dead pieces, identifiable by discoloration or a slimy rind.
Notes: When one comes across a rich, intense flavor such as Brillat-Savarin one must find other similarly bold flavors with which to pair it, lest the one overshadow the other. My advice for this cheese "confection" is to find the biggest, ripest, sweetest strawberries around, cut them in half, make a Brillat-Savarin-strawberry sandwhich, and then drizzle a balsamic vinegar reduction over the lot. You may want to sit down for this.
Thoughts: My notes from when I first tried Brillat-Savarin begin with "This is possibly the best brie I have ever come across". A sign of inexperience, to be sure it has been dethroned whether or not it ever rightly held the crown, but it did not receive this high praise without grounds. Nor would I hesitate even today to call it one of my favorite all-time cheese, and here's why. The next line in my description reads "impossibly creamy and milky", but even that falls short of fully explaining just how rich this cheese is. The clean, grassy aroma tickles the nose and is also present in the wickedly sweet paste, which you will want to spread on just about anything within reach. At room temperature, or when aged, it gains a hint of complexity with the odd savory tones, but even in its relatively one-dimensional young stage it is an absolute delight and will surely be a hit at any party. A rare example of doing one thing well enough to appease the critics, this cheese was destined for dessert alongside sweet, fresh fruit and a bottle of Champagne.
Caution
If one day I am murdered with a (famously fatal) cheese overdose, check first to see who's been buying Brillat-Savarin in bulk. Don't worry, though, I would have died happy.
So, hypothetically if I wanted to have a nice romantic picnic, I could grab some bread, some fruit (strawberries), a bottle of Champagne and this cheese? Would this make a good picnic cheese?
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