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Camembert Cheese

Craig4

Penultimate Amazing
Craig4
Joined
Aug 12, 2010
Messages
28,217
Location
I live in a swamp
Understanding the role smell plays in taste I'm curious about Camembert Cheese. How is it that Camembert Cheese, which smells like my feet, after I've been in a swamp, tastes so good? I love it as long as I don't breath right before I put it in my mouth.
 
To answer the question we need a control.
Go play in the swamp for a bit, stuff your foot in your mouth* and report back.

*You should be accompanied by a responsible adult when you do this.
 
I went through some of my training at Fort Dix, New Jersey. I already know what my feet smell like when they've been in a swamp.
 
But Camembert is a mild cheese.

Now, Stinking Bishop, that's a cheese. It really does smell awful, but taste lovely.
 
I too have often wondered about this. Same goes for some of the even more pungent cheeses. I am a "smelly cheese" fan, and can't seem to get enough of them. Give me a stilton plowman's meal any day of the week!
 
This is an interesting question, given the link between the smell and taste senses.
I love the stinky cheeses, from the relatively mild Danish Blue or Gorgonzola to some really pungent European offerings whose names escape me at the moment. It is probably some form of cognitive dissonance that overrides the natural reaction that if something smells bad it is better not to eat it.
It is not just cheese. If anyone has tasted the fruit durian, it was probably a challenge to overcome the stench.
http://www.suite101.com/content/thailands-fruit-the-durian-a24278
I found it to be moderately tasty, but there is certainly a level of hype about it.

V.
 
The cheeses thing is probably related to Umami, amino acids broken down by the bacteria. Umami is what accounts for the niceness of Soy sauce and Vietnamese Fish Sauce. It is also in mother's milk. Adds savoriness.

Durian is interesting, insides taste and look like custard. But smells a bit like semen. Ammonia?

But the ability, or lack, to smell some things is genetic. I suspect that some have an extra copy of the Durian gene, some are lacking one copy? Isn't asparagus that way too?
 
Craig4 said:
Understanding the role smell plays in taste I'm curious about Camembert Cheese. How is it that Camembert Cheese, which smells like my feet, after I've been in a swamp, tastes so good? I love it as long as I don't breath right before I put it in my mouth.
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Camembert stinking ? You have done somethign terribly wrong with your camembert, or you have never ever been near a really "naturally" stinking cheese.
 
Camembert vs feet brings up another point:

When asked why I wear leather gloves, I answer "so my hands will smell like my feet!".

Pretty cheesy joke,what?

I really went out a limburger for that one.

Good thing I had my Stiltons, or I could have fallen.

To bad puns about Chevre get my goat.
 
Maybe the o/p was thinking about Brie rather than Camembert? A really ripe Brie can stink, and taste pretty much the way it stinks. Yummm.
 
Craig4 said:
Understanding the role smell plays in taste I'm curious about Camembert Cheese. How is it that Camembert Cheese, which smells like my feet, after I've been in a swamp, tastes so good? I love it as long as I don't breath right before I put it in my mouth.
Click to expand...

There really should have been a Wallace and Grommet joke by now.
 
Craig4 said:
I went through some of my training at Fort Dix, New Jersey. I already know what my feet smell like when they've been in a swamp.
Click to expand...

Yes, yes. But what do they taste like?


Anyway, what's a good American boy doing eating French cheese in the first place? You ain't one of them pinko liberals are you?:eek:
 
casebro said:
The cheeses thing is probably related to Umami, amino acids broken down by the bacteria. Umami is what accounts for the niceness of Soy sauce and Vietnamese Fish Sauce. [...]?
Click to expand...

I don't know about the cheeses, but umami is associated with the amino acid glutamic acid - AKA MSG.
 
Verde said:
This is an interesting question, given the link between the smell and taste senses.
Click to expand...

Other than moldy cheeses, what other foods are there whose odors and tastes are dramatically different?

Coffee.
 
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