According to legend, the Emperor Charlemagne became a fan if soft ripened cheese after savoring Brie in the 8th Century, so it certainly is a cheese enjoyed by kings…but the “king of cheese,” really?
In 1814, at the Congress of Vienna after the Napoleonic wars, a 7 month congress of statesman hammered out boundaries of the sovereign nations of Europe. And apparently it was also quite the party.
To break what must have been quite a bit of tension, the congress turned to cheese. Each participating country presented its finest cheese – English Stilton, Swiss Emmenthal, Dutch Edam and Italian Stracchino and, Brie de Meaux, presented by the French statesman Talleyrand. One historian* recounts the event: “The Brie rendered itself to the knife. It was a feast. No one further argued the point.”
So, indeed, Brie was crowned “Le Roi du Fromage,” the King of Cheese.
