Meeting Marie-Anne Cantin

Marie-Anne Cantin’s fromagerie is inconspicuously tucked into a narrow little side street midway between the Eiffel Tower and Napoleon’s tomb. She is sharp, perky, greatly opinionated, and reminds me just a bit of Debbie Reynolds.

Cantin is a second-generation fromager, having taken over the business from her father. I ask her if she has any Ay-pwoss, blowing out the second syllable as if getting rid of something nasty in my mouth, and she makes that same little raspberry noise that Diane made and leads me to one of her stunning little cheese displays where we stare, together, at four little creamy rounds that look like pumpkin-colored CDs.

“Voilà!” says Madame Cantin, as if she had just produced photos of her grandchildren.

She carefully lifts one up to my face. I smile and sniff. It is…odoriferous. Seeing my reaction, Madame Cantin gives me my first lesson in French cheese appreciation: “The worse the cheese smells,” she tells me, “the better it tastes.” Then she shrugs and adds, “This is a hard thing for Americans to understand.” What the hell. Since I’m not eating it, I don’t care.