If you've never tried it, here's all you need to know: Camembert is to American Cheese as Lady Gaga is to Marie Osmond. Got it, mon ami?

Camembert, in France, is something of a cult. It isn't just consumed, it's worshiped -- talked about, I would say, a whole lot more than Jesus. That is, IF the past two weeks of me visiting my French relatives is any indication.

In America, where I come from, cheese is something to slap on a hamburger or serve to guests before a meal so they don't get cranky. In France, cheese is served after the meal. It is not a snack. It is not an appetizer. Mon dieu! Au contraire! It is a complete and total course unto itself -- a highly purposeful serving of seriously shopped-for food that is served between the meal and the dessert.

As an occasional visitor to France, what I find most astounding about camembert is not its royalty status in the French cheese world, but its capacity to bridge the inter-generational gap.

Put three generations of French people around the dinner table -- all with very different tastes in music, fashion, technology, and politics -- and, with the presence of camembert on the table, you will soon begin to experience a fascinating phenomenon. As people get their first whiff of the round, soft, runny, buttery, glowing wheel of divinity, all other conversations cease. Where only seconds before people were arguing about the economy, the weather, or Donald Trump, now a kind of harmonic resonance can be palpably felt. All eyes are on the cheese. All conversations are about the cheese. Deeply felt reflections on past cheese experiences fill the room.

Bottom line, the camembert has become the sun around which all the rest of us revolve. The aches and pains of my 90-year old mother-in-law? Whether to pick up the phone each of the 35 times she calls every day? Poof! Dissolved in thin air! Fini!

Only camembert remains.

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