It had been years since I had eaten Camembert. I was born and bred in Normandy. Camembert was probably liquidised to add to my baby bottle from the day I turned 3 months old. I really, really miss it.

When I first met Josephine in the Biocoop shop in the Coty shopping centre in Le Havre, I got excited and then straight away made myself take a deep breath, in a “Don’t expect too much” type of self-chiding reaction. It was not the first time I thought I had found a great vegan Camembert impersonator. Still I bought three of them, just in case…

I took them home to my dad’s place and we all sat around the dining table to start degustating the potentially precious find.

Josephine is amazing. It tastes like a new, fresh, firm Camembert, not like an older, riper version. My grand-father used to keep his Camembert out of the fridge.

When maggots got to it, he would scrape them off with his pocket knife and then eat the cheese. Josephine is not this type. She won’t run away on her own out of the box.

The recipe is simple: almond milk, cashew nuts, salt and ferments. How it ends up tasting like this I don’t know but it works.

Unfortunately I haven’t found an outlet in the UK that sells Josephine. Now that I have the ingredients, I am trying to find an equivalent. If you know of one, please let me know in the comments below. In the meanwhile, if you are in France, you can find an outlet on the Jay & Joy website. Next time I go I’ll fill the coolbox 🙂

Please click here for a link to the Jay & Joy website.