I was visiting the UK and figured that, before I head home, I'd best come to Paris and eat cheese. And so that's what I have done. Cheese is almost the entire reason that I'm here. Two cheese and wine tastings, a daily visit to a fromagerie to get a fix, and a visit to Musée Vivant du Fromage were all on deck.
You can go in by yourself and just look around, but this is really best as a guided experience. There are a number of tours every day, and on my tour, I was the only person. So it was a very nice and personal introduction.
My tour guide was named Agathe and she is a professional cheesemaker. She attended school for one week per month for two years. (I think I have that right.) The museum, while having some artifacts, is mostly an explanation of how cheese came to be, how it is made, and an introduction to the families of cheeses. Agathe scooped some curd from a bucket and put it into a draining mold. Then she took one of the little cheeses that she'd put into a similar mold the day before and flipped it. And then we ate a bit of the fresh cheese that had been 36 hours drained.
She also gave me little samples of four other cheeses–some fresh cheese that was a few days old, a 24-month Comté (of course), a chèvre, and a Roquefort.
The price to enter was €20 plus an optional €5 for a glass of wine with my cheese sample. Agathe was glad to provide my tour in English. I'm very glad to have been. If you're some sort of cheese pro, the museum probably won't do much for you. But even as an experienced and somewhat knowledgeable cheese-eater, I quite enjoyed the 45 minutes or so that I spent there.
There is a cheese shop in the front of the museum, so you can get some tasty French cheeses to take away with you when the tour is done.
by TJgoesplaces