It can be recognised by its very particular shape, different from that of other cheeses: it is a cylinder that is higher than it is wide.

It was born in the Forez mountains, where the summers are hot and the winters long and cold, and where the milk is collected at an altitude of 700 to 1,800 metres.

Fourme d'Ambert is a blue-veined cow's milk cheese.

It is covered with a thin dry bloomy and greyish rind

Its rind is dry, with grey felt and orange-red blotches. Its cream-coloured fatty paste is supple and unctuous, and has a slight cellar smell.

Its flavour is rustic, fine and fragrant.

A bit of history, Fourme d'Ambert certainly dates back to the first periods of feudalism, around the 8th century.

But it is probable that it was already being prepared in the land of the Arvernes (ancient Auvergne) before Caesar's conquest.

On a chapel located at La Chaulme in the Puy-de-Dôme, there is a series of carved stones on which appear the different foodstuffs that the stag must give to the lord: butter, ham, sausage, eggs, hay and fourme!

Until the 19th century, the fourme d'Ambert was made in Jasseries, which were often dilapidated buildings that served as a home, a cheese factory and a stable. In fine weather, the women and children would go there to make the fourme while the men stayed on the farm to tend to the hay!

Henri de la Tour d'Auvergne, Viscount of Turenne (1611 - 1675) declared: "God is with the big battalions, especially when his soldiers have a piece of fourme in their bag!

Did you know that ....... Fourme comes from the old French forme, which gave fourmaige, formage, then cheese!

The Fourme de Montbrison is very similar to the Fourme d'Ambert but it is less fatty, drier and therefore less mellow!