Tea at Trianon: How to Create a French Cheese Board

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, September 19, 2026

How to Create a French Cheese Board

From Léonce:

This is usually how I compose a board. I begin with the cheese I most want to eat, or one I am curious to discover, then choose the others in relation to it. For a full board, I like five cheeses. It is enough to create variety without making the meal feel exhaustive. One can be familiar, another unexpected; one soft, another firm; one gentle and another with more character.

You might look for something creamy, something aged, something fresh or tangy, something aromatic and a blue. But this is only a starting point. A board of mountain cheeses may contain several firm cow’s milk cheeses, while a Loire selection may be almost entirely devoted to goat’s cheese. What matters is that the cheeses feel different enough to make tasting them together interesting.

I try not to choose several with almost the same texture and intensity simply because I like each one individually. They should have something to say to one another. (Read more.)