Is that the Dubois at Maubert - Mutualité? We bought some cheeses from them in January, brought them back to Zurich, and they were excellent.
Again mine were all soft and very stinky. The firm one like his 36 month Comte might be different.
I plan on bringing butter and cheese from Paris to the U.S. in May, but could use some advice. I did the same thing two years ago with much success. The butter and cheese were shrinkwrapped at the stores. The butter was frozen by the hotel the night before we left and the cheese was chilled. They were packed in an insulated bag with an icepack.
For the butter, I chose Bordier Demi-Sel from La Grande Epicerie in the 7th.
Knowing nothing much about French cheese, I randomly chose several pieces recommended by a staffer at Fromagerie Quatrehomme. https://www.quatrehomme.fr/en
About the butter, should I stick with Bordier? I want to get something you can’t get here in the U.S. I thought it was excellent but open to trying others as well.
As for the cheese. This time around I was thinking of maybe getting some Comté and perhaps a few others semi-hard/hardish, maybe one softish Brie? What do you suggest? Nothing stinky or super soft like Roquefort. The cheese is not for me, but for my daughter and she said get whatever I want, surprise her. Thanks!
Butter and Cheese from 2019 trip to Paris:
Bordier butter was discussed in the Brittany thread:
Moved your post to the Paris main cheese thread, to avoid duplicated multiple topic.
I usually don’t make butter a quest and supermarkets usually have a selection of very good butter. But, if I’m in the area, I love the artisanal farmhouse butter (from Normandie) from Taka&Vermo fromagerie on rue Faubourg St Denis in the 10th (not tourist territory but quite a popular hangout area for 20- and 30-something Parisians and local foodies attracted by some excellent restos in the area).
For cheese, I suggest the summer cheese Epoisses de Bourgogne which will start to appear in fromageries in May. It’s stinky but comes wrapped in a wooden box that contains the smell until opened. Similary in consistency to Brie but, for me, a very superior taste. And buy a jar of superior cherry confitures to go with it. And, for a harder cheese, the basque Ossau-Iraty. Yum.
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Indeed, and searching out the unpasteurized by Gaugry is worth your trouble. We find it at Ferme St. Hubert, 36, rue de Rochechouart,9.
Thanks for this. Their composed cheeses are lovely, and their price on Mont d’Or makes me cry, altho they note they are sold out. No surprises there.
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Mont d’Or is seasonal and the season is coming to an end so not surprising they are sold out. It starts to reappear in September. Probably supermarket versions year-round but any good fromagerie will only sell what’s in season.
Totally understand. Just lamenting that in season my SF cost is over $30.
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You can also try the butter from la Ferme de la Charmille, available from Humphris (2 rue Milton, Paris 9).
I’ve heard Jean-Yves Bordier’s butter are available in US as well. Among all the flavours, I love especially smoked salt followed by seaweed and Yuzu.
Recently, I’m in love with the butter collection from Laëtitia Gaborit MOF, on sale in Metro. I don’t know you can find them easily in shops. But like Parn said, butter found in normal supermarket here are very decent.
Cheese in May, you might want to try the nutty flavoured Saint-Nectaire. Maroilles and Munster are also available in May but very strong, and I bet not for you (especially Maroilles 
). If you like comté, you can try beaufort as well. Another vote for Ossau-Iraty, the younger ones are more floral vs the older stronger fruity ones.
I just read that Bordier butter can be bought from an importer in New York. Not going that route.
For farm-fresh butters will they have any specific appellations on them?
Thanks for the tips!
In short, no. For example Belle Miss’ Terre butter uses milk with cows that eats only straw, if you look at the package, there isn’t any appellation, but at the corner of the photo, you see a kind of “label”, indicating artisan quality, but I’ve not seen this label before. (It’s a good butter, btw.)
Most of the time, farm butter is made in moule like this, in a way, the form can help to identify, but I think some marketing people have figured this out, so it’s not strictly the way to identify.
Words like “artisanal”, “baratte” and especially “cru” may help. At times, I think the more primitive the packaging, maybe the better. 
Label like AOP becomes doubtful, as industrial loves to use that a lot.
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Nice explanation and photos!
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Belle Miss’Terre is the very best farm-made butter that I know of. Their cream is also incredible. At Culinaries (for which I do all the writing, so I have to taste all the products), we have tried quite a few farm butters, including Couleur Froment and Champ-Secret, but Belle Miss’Terre absolutely beat all of them. We also liked some Alpine butters but they’re not easy to find in Paris. I think our grocery store in Lyon does still carry them.
Collège Culinaire de France (that’s the logo) is a Ducasse-initiated congregation of the best food artisans, organic or not but organic most of the time, doing a special job on the originality, quality of their products, and their packaging. They have a big meeting in the form of a market at Ground Control once a year, in October, and many smaller market-meetings in other places like pays Basque for instance. Their website and their list of artisans and chefs is worth checking out. In my opinion, one of the good things Ducasse has done.
There is such a thing as a specific appellation for butter and it is the AOP or IGP. There are three AOP butters at the moment: Bresse, Isigny, and Charentes-Poitou. All of them are industrial or semi-industrial. AOP means they’re made in a definite geographical zone with a charter, but anything and its brother can go into that charter, thus AOP is not a guarantee of quality, it is a guarantee of standardization, and depending what you put into the charter, it can be pretty close to a scam (for instance, AOP Agneau de pré-salé du Mont-Saint-Michel can be obtained from a certain number of breeds, including Suffolk sheep, also including the two original local breeds that made that meat famous (avranchine and cotentine sheeps), but these are by no means mandatory and nobody raises them within the AOP. Thus if you want true pré-salé, you have to find it outside of the AOP. Same with the Corsican nustrale breed of pig and the AOP charcuterie corse.)
It is no coincidence that Isigny butter you find in supermarkets, even AOP-labelled, and Charentes-Poitou are decent butters but definitely blander than most unlabeled farm-made butters that you find through pure serendipity. To me, Bresse butter is the best of the three, having retained some local character. All my favorite butters don’t have an AOP and I don’t think they’ll have one anytime soon.
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I wouldn’t bother with cheeses that I could get at home. My own favorite French cheese that is never available in the US is Camembert de Normandie au lait cru, artisanal or bio. The camembert available in the US is from pasteurized milk, making it quite bland. Another French cheese I would import is Reblochon.
By the way, you may want to place your purchases in checked baggage. The last time I tried to bring back butter, vigilant carry on inspectors confiscated it at the departure airport as “semi-solid, over 100 grams.”
Thank you for the cheese recs. And yes, they will travel in a checked bag.
Butter needs to be “frozen” if you want to bring back, says here:
BTW, for cheese, it said pasteurized cheeses:
With cheeses, it’s the consistency that makes the difference. Only hard, semi-soft, and pasteurized cheeses are allowed over US borders to live the American dream of being eaten on a Wheat Thin. Raclette, emmental, comté, brie, camembert are among those welcome, along with many other milk-based products like yogurt and butter. It’s those soft and runny cheeses like chèvre that are not allowed, or cheeses that contain any meat products in them.
The best cheeses and butter are the unpasteurized ones…
