Exciting news from across the English Channel: a viral cheese has taken the French fitness world by storm, but good luck spelling or pronouncing its name. According to Libération, la cancoillotte, a liquid cheese from Franche-Comté in eastern France, is dominating fitness social media thanks to its 16 grams of protein per 100 grams, low fat content, and bargain price. Its secret ingredient is a skimmed milk product called metton, traditionally a byproduct of butter-making repurposed by thrifty peasants to avoid waste.
The Rise of Cancoillotte
Those Franc-Comtois peasants could hardly have imagined where their waste-not-want-not gloop would end up. In April, social media personality Johan Papz declared that discovering cancoillotte was 'the best day of my life,' flamboyantly flinging the pale ooze over a plate of potatoes like a moister Salt Bae, then flashing the abs its impressive macronutrients allowed him to cultivate. Another cancoillotte influencer has made 178 TikToks on the topic and traveled more than 300 miles on a pilgrimage to Franche-Comté. Julie Morin, president of the association for the promotion of cancoillotte, called online enthusiasm for the product 'incredible,' while supermarket Carrefour told Libération that sales of the garlic variety rose 16% last month.
A Cultural Debate
However, watching endless social media videos of people in Gymshark vests and crop tops manipulating cancoillotte has left some feeling queasy. For a start, cheese-haters find its eerie texture creepy: it resembles a whey-based slime, fondue's sinister skinny cousin, or a low-fat lactose ectoplasm. There is also a sense of cultural betrayal: aren't French people supposed to care about taste above macros and lean muscle mass? While French women's magazines still promote the 'régime maillot' (swimsuit diet) full of 0% fat yoghurts, the 'art of living' and savouring-the-finer-things dream seems at odds with slopping supermarket cancoillotte onto chicken breasts for gym gains.
As Escoffier said, 'Good food is the foundation of genuine happiness,' and the trend feels end-of-days depressing to some. Yet, cancoillotte's popularity shows no signs of waning, sparking a debate between tradition and modern fitness culture in France.
