“Port-Salut preferred”

There’s a story, possibly apocryphal, that prisoners in Colonial America were fed lobster — in one case so often that they protested against being served what’s now considered a luxury food. Whether it’s true or not, lobster was a mainstay in some early American diets, and it’s possible folks grew tired of it now and then, as unlikely as that may sound. 

Cheese lovers can look to a more recent example of familiarity breeding apathy. In a summer 1944 issue of England’s The Daily Telegraph, a catch-all department noted a peculiar phenomenon among British soldiers who were stationed in Normandy. 

English civilians had been wondering — and making good-natured bets on — how long Camembert cheese would be unavailable at home because of the Normandy invasion; the cheese variety was as popular then as it is now. 

In response to the tongue-in-cheek concerns about an English Camembert shortage, a British officer stationed in Normandy dashed off a letter to one of the wagerers back home. “He tells me,” the newspaper brief detailed, “that in his battalion mess they have had so much Camembert that they have changed over to Port-Salut.”

From our viewpoint, that tradeout is a win-win: At Hoard’s Dairyman Farm Creamery, a significant portion of our Wisconsin farm’s milk goes to create both Camembert-style and Port-Salut-style cheeses. Still, it’s the first time we’ve ever heard of anyone having too much of such a great thing.