Baguette laonnaise is a washed-rind cheese from the north of France, and it is named for its shape rather than for a place or a recipe.
It is a bar: about 15cm long with a square section, rather than the wheel or square block most washed rinds arrive in.
You are unlikely to find one. It is now rare enough that most people who read about it will never meet it on a counter.
In This Article
What Is Baguette Laonnaise?
The Aisne, in what is now Hauts-de-France, is Maroilles country, and almost every washed rind made there is a variation on that one cheese.
This is one of them. It was invented in the 1940s at Laon, the old hilltop town that gives it the first half of its name.
The second half is a plain description of the format: a baguette, meaning a rod or bar, not the bread.
Shops also sell it as baguette de Thierache, after the wider region, so anyone hunting for it should watch for both names.
The word baguette is doing its plain French job here and describes a stick or a bar. It has nothing to do with bread beyond the shape they share.
Laon is the cathedral town the first name points at, which places the cheese in the north of France near the Belgian border rather than anywhere better known for cheese.
Two names, one cheese. It is sold as baguette laonnaise after the town of Laon and as baguette de Thierache after the wider region, and a shop may list it under either. Searching only one name is a common reason people conclude it has disappeared entirely.
Why Is It Shaped Like a Bar?
The dimensions are precise enough to be worth stating: roughly 15cm long, a square section of about 6cm on each side, and a finished weight of 500g. A 250g demi-baguette is also made.
That geometry is not decorative. A long thin bar has far more surface for its volume than a wheel of the same weight, and for a washed rind the surface is where the work happens.
More rind per gram means more of the bacterial character reaches the paste, and it reaches it faster and more evenly than it would in a thick round cheese.
The cut follows from the shape too. You slice across the bar, so every slice comes out square with rind on all four sides rather than a wedge with rind along one edge.
That is a small design decision changing what a mouthful tastes like, which is unusual for something that looks like packaging.
It also changes how the cheese ages on a shelf. A bar dries from four faces at once, so it moves faster than a wheel and has a shorter window at its best.
And it changes how you should buy it. A whole 500g bar of a cheese this strong is a serious commitment, which is presumably why the 250g demi-baguette exists at all.
How Is It Washed and Aged?
In a humid cave, with the rind washed in salt water at intervals across three to four months.
Repeated brining suppresses the moulds that would otherwise take the surface and lets the bacteria behind washed-rind character take it instead.
Three to four months is long for a soft washed rind. Many are sold at six to ten weeks, and the extra time is part of why this one arrives as forcefully as it does.
Washing is what makes the difference, and it is a repeated act rather than a single step. The surface is wiped with brine at intervals through the whole maturation.
Brine suits one particular family of bacteria and discourages almost everything else, so the wash is a way of choosing what grows rather than simply keeping the cheese clean.
Those bacteria break the paste down from the outside in and produce the smell. A longer wash means more of both, which is why months rather than weeks changes the cheese so much.
What Does It Taste Like?
Powerful, and close enough to its parent cheese that anyone who knows that one will recognise the family immediately.
The paste is supple and shiny with a few small holes, and it stays pliable rather than running.
Where it differs is intensity rather than direction. The extra rind surface pushes the same flavours further, so it reads as a concentrated version rather than a different idea.
The rind is edible but assertive, and how much of it you take is the main lever you have over how strong each bite is.
The gap between the smell and the taste is wider here than in almost any other cheese, and it catches people out in both directions.
What reaches the nose is ammonia and farmyard; what reaches the tongue is far softer and saltier than that promises.
How Should You Serve It?
Cut across the bar in thick slices and take it out of the fridge well ahead, because this is a cheese that gives very little when cold.
The regional answer for what to drink is beer rather than wine, and the north of France has the beers to back that up.
A dark bread with some density stands up to it, and anything delicate is simply going to disappear.
Storage follows the usual washed-rind rule with one extra consideration. Wrap it in waxed paper rather than film, and give it a box of its own, because a cheese this strong will scent everything around it.
| Pairing | Type | Why It Works |
|---|---|---|
| Baguette laonnaise + a northern French beer | Drink | The local answer. Malt sweetness and carbonation both cut a washed rind more effectively than most wine does. |
| Baguette laonnaise + dark rye bread | Bread | Density and a little sourness. A soft white loaf will vanish under the cheese. |
| Baguette laonnaise + a full-bodied white | Wine | If it has to be wine, choose weight and acidity over tannin. Reds get flattened by the rind. |
| Avoid: delicate crackers and fresh fruit | Fruit | Both get overwhelmed. This is a cheese that needs partners with something to say back. |
Can You Still Buy It?
Rarely, and that is the honest answer rather than a marketing line about scarcity. The cheese has become very rare and does not appear in general retail even in France.
Specialist cheesemongers in the north occasionally carry it, and that is realistically the only route.
It is worth being clear about what rare means here. Unlike a cheese that has stopped entirely, this one is still made, so the problem is distribution rather than extinction.
If you cannot find one, the substitution is unusually simple, because what is scarce is the format rather than the flavour.
Buy the parent cheese instead. You lose the geometry and the extra rind, and you keep almost everything else.
That parent is the square Thierache washed rind, which is easier to find and sold in most French cheese shops.
Further afield, the Alsace washed rind reaches a similar strength by a different route and the Burgundy one goes past it.
If none of those is available, the banded Norman cheese is the widest-distributed washed rind that still smells like something.
SOURCES & REFERENCES
Baguette Laonnaise FAQ
Two things the name causes trouble with.
No, though the confusion is understandable. Baguette is an ordinary French word for a rod or wand, and here it is doing plain descriptive work rather than referring to bread.
Yes. The same cheese is sold under both names, one naming the town of Laon and the other the wider Thierache region, so it is worth searching for both.
