bookofjoe

France's First Cheese Museum

If I woke up and found myself in Paris, this is the first place I'd go.

From the Smithsonian:

You Can Now Visit France's First-Ever Cheese Museum

At last, a destination where you can get cultured in more ways than one: France's very first cheese museum, the Musée du Fromage, is now open in the heart of Paris.

The country is famous for its artisanal cheeses.

Numerous cheese festivals are held every year, and it's not hard to stumble upon a rich selection of cheeses at one of France's popular open-air markets.

According to some estimates, the French eat an average of more than 50 pounds of cheese annually.

Until now, France hasn't had a museum dedicated to the history of cheese.

When Pierre Brisson, the museum's founder, moved to Paris about 15 years ago, he found this surprising.

"I realized that lots of things were already organized in Paris to promote wine. Wine culture is developed in France," Brisson told Euronews' Amber Louise Bryce. "Cheese is also a big thing, but there were no places where people could learn about the processes of making cheese."

Brisson developed his passion for cheese as a child.

Every Sunday after mass, he and his father would visit the local cheesemonger.

"I was about the height of the display and would look at all the marvelous cheeses directly in front of my eyes," he told the Guardian's Kim Willsher. "I became fascinated by where they came from and how they were made."

Now, Brisson wants to pay it forward.

My dream is that in 20 years’ time, someone will say they decided to become a cheesemaker after visiting the museum," he said.

The Musée du Fromage produces its own cheese, which visitors can sample at tastings.

It also features interactive displays which examine the history of various cheeses in different regions of the country.

On-site experts provide hands-on learning opportunities, such as workshops and cheesemaking demonstrations.

"[The process] depends on so many things, even the humor of the animals whose milk is being used," said Agathe de Saint-Exupéry, one of the experts at the museum. "You can make the same cheese every day, and every day it will taste different. It just cannot be done industrially."

Tickets are €20 (about $22) for adults and €13 (about $14) for children.

Farmers and agriculture students can visit free.

Brisson's team hopes the museum will appeal not just to tourists but also to French citizens interested in learning about the traditional cheesemaking practices of their ancestors. 

Today, experts have a thorough scientific understanding of the cheesemaking process.

"Our ancestors... didn't know all [those] details, but they still could make amazing cheese," Brisson said. "There is a know-how that's been developed for centuries that we have inherited today." 

The team wants to pass along some of that know-how to younger generations. 

"People can see cheesemaking live and also talk to the cheesemaker," Brisson adds. "We are working with many traditional farmers, so we want people [to feel like they're] kind of traveling when they taste the cheese. We are opening a little window in the heart of Paris to the rural side of France."

The squares marked A and B are the same shade of gray

Wrote Kathryn Schulz in her very entertaining book, "Being Wrong: Adventures in The Margin of Error":

This is one of my favorite optical illusions, not because it is particularly dazzling but because it is particularly maddening.... If you think of this image as a checkerboard, then all the "white" squares that fall within the shadow of the cylinder (like B) are the same color as all the "black" squares that fall outside the shadow (like A).

You don't believe me, for the very good reason that you do believe your eyes, and your eyes are telling you that these squares look completely different. Actually, it's not your eyes that are telling you this; it's a handful of interpretive processes.... When it comes to determining the color of objects around us, our visual system can't afford to be too literal. If it were, it would do nothing but measure the wavelength of light reflecting off a given object. In that case, as the psychologist Steven Pinker has pointed out, we would think that a lump of coal sitting in bright sunlight was white, and that a lump of snow inside a dark house was black. Instead, we're able to correct for the presence of light and shadow so that the coal still appears fundamentally black and the snow still appears fundamentally white.

One way we do this is through local contrast. In nature, if something is lighter than its immediate surroundings, it's probably light in an absolute sense, rather than just because of the way the sun is or isn't striking it. That's one reason why, in this illusion, we read Square B (which is lighter than the dark checks around it) as light, period. The same phenomenon applies in reverse, so that we read Square A (which is darker than the squares around it) as dark, period. This interpretation is reinforced by several other interpretive processes, including the fact that we automatically adjust for cast shadows, mentally lightening whatever objects they fall on — in this case, Square B.

The net effect of these visual "corrections" is an illusion that is absolutely unshakeable. When I first saw it, I was so incredulous that I finally took a pair of scissors and cut the picture apart — whereupon, lo and behold, the A and B squares became indistinguishable from each other. In an effort to discourage you from mutilating this book, I offer a second image:

Not quite as convincing as slicing and dicing, perhaps, but a good start. (If you must cut it apart yourself to be persuaded, the original image... is available on the website of its creator, Edward Adelson, a professor of vision science at MIT).

Adelson's proof is here.

More?

Your wish is my demand: here he explains why the illusion works.

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On the fence?

You won't be after you watch the woman in the video below

put this puppy through its paces.