Brie encounters

Brie is seldom far from a restaurant cheeseboard. Its mild, gluey, chewy texture is a perfect foil for the punch of a mature hard cheese or the astringent taste of a ripe blue.

Brie is a global cheese style, like Cheddar. And just as Somerset cheesemakers feel forever cursed by the day they forgot to protect the name of Cheddar by registering the trademark, so the cheesemakers of Meaux, to the east of Paris, watch sadly as their style of crusted soft cheese, Brie de Meaux, pops up all over the world.

Cheshire cheesemaker David Wade allows himself a quick smile as he explains to a tutored tasting audience of four chefs the grief of the French cheesemakers at losing the rights to any soft-crusted cheese called Brie, and how, worldwide, supermarkets sell mass-produced Brie in the same bland style as some production-line Cheddar.

As Wade explains to his audience, Brie is, in cheesemaking terms, a high-moisture, high-acidity cheese which mould-ripens from the surface inwards. This is why, when eaten, the crusty skin is mature while the core is soft and mellow. The maturation of a Brie comes through spraying the surface of the cheese with moulds to begin the ripening work when it is four to five weeks old and relatively firm.

Virtually all Brie-type cheeses are moulded in the familiar flat cartwheel shape, rather than the chunky barrel-like truckle associated with hard cheeses. The reason for this is that the flatter shape speeds up the maturation process.

A Brie is ripe when it is the same texture all the way through. This typically takes 10 to 12 weeks, during which time the cheese's centre evolves its characteristic buttery colour. Unlike many hard cheeses, Brie will not remain in good condition through longer maturation - it is a cheese that has to be eaten young, since the enzymes that soften it do not cease working and will go on making it softer until the cheese takes on a runny quality. A sure sign of a Brie that has been matured for too long is the sight of cheese oozing out after cutting. There is nothing wrong in the eating quality of it in this state, but it is difficult to present on a plate.

As with virtually all cheeses produced in Britain and Ireland, Brie-style cheeses are suitable for vegetarian dishes, since cheesemakers stopped using calf's rennet for curdling the milk many years ago in favour of vegetable rennet on the grounds of cost and availability.

When buying Brie cheeses from a cheesemonger, examine the surface. The appearance is important and says a lot about the skill and attention of the cheesemaker. There should be an even bloom and colour, with no dark or dry, cracked patches on the surface.

The Brie-style cheeses for this tutored tasting were selected by Peter Paprill, of fine food merchant Pendrill 1651, who has acquired legendary status among chefs as a cheese detective for hunting out the unknown and unloved farmhouse cheesemakers of the British Isles and introducing them to chefs.