On March 15, 2018, Agropur (a leading cooperative in the North American dairy industry) announced that five of its cheeses had been crowned champions in their category at the prestigious World Championship Cheese Contest. Three thousand four hundred (3,400) cheeses from 26 different countries competed in this worldwide competition created in 1957.
Manufactured in Saint-Hyacinthe (50 minutes from Montreal), the Quebec camembert L’Extra beat 17 other competitors and won 1st prize at the world cheese competition held in Madison, WI on March 6-8.
“The creamy taste of milk, hazelnuts and mushrooms in this camembert delighted the taste buds of an internationally renowned panel of judges. It’s a tasty victory for Agropur that makes its savoir-faire in the production of fine cheeses shine in the Canadian market,” announced the Agropur press release, which also states that all the technical aspects of the participating cheeses were evaluated by a jury of 50 experts from different countries.
The victory didn’t surprise Maudits Francais, a website for French expats in Canada produced by French Morning Media Group, who are no stranger to enjoying good Quebecois cheese like L’Extra. “There is a real diversity of cheeses in the Province of Quebec, more than we can imagine,” confided Olivier Tourette, the French cheese maker of La Cloche à Fromage in Montreal.
Try this camembert L’Extra, soft and gooey on the inside with a ripened crust, made with pasteurized milk and cream (but then is it still camembert? that is the question), from the purest European tradition… it’s extra.
This article originally appeared on our sister site, Maudits Francais.
