Like its even better-known relative, Brie, Camembert is a soft cheese. When you see it on a fancy cheese platter, you’ll recognize its thick, creamy center. If your party hosts have left it out long enough, it will be squeezable. (Brie, on the other hand, will be runny.) The rind, which you must eat, should appear to have a little brown mottling. A PDO Camembert de Normandie must be made with unfiltered raw milk with a fat content of at least 38 percent that comes from cows from France’s northern Normandy province, fed under strict conditions—grass and hay from local pastures. The milk must be hand-ladled in four or more layers into specific molds. Milk is transported no farther than the distance that cows can slowly dawdle in search of a fresh blade of grass.

If this is the cheese you’re seeking, particularly outside of France, then good luck. Today, only four million of the 360 million wheels produced annually—just a little over 1 percent—are the real deal, and, as small farms are scooped up by the big guys, the number is rapidly dwindling.

Bloomberg Report