For those who seek to understand more about modern Paris, read Impossible City: Paris in the 21st Century, by journalist Simon Kuper. During the First World War, Camembert, often viewed as the quintessential French cheese, went from being a regional product little known outside Normandy and Paris to a cheese appreciated throughout France and abroad. But thanks to an aggressive campaign by Normandy Camembert producers, who decorated their round boxes with French flags, assiduously lobbied the French government, and worked to keep prices low, Camembert “became the daily cheese of the French soldier, most of whom had never encountered it before.