--- title: Google Doodle Celebrates Inventor of Camembert Marie Harel description: On what would have been her 256th birthday, Google Doodle honors French dairymaid Marie Harel, the inventor of camembert cheese. canonical: https://time.com/4758882/google-doodle-marie-harel-camembert/ author: Ryan Kilpatrick article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-04-28T03:49:28.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:02:52.694Z og:title: Google Doodle Celebrates Inventor of Camembert Marie Harel og:description: Harel's soft-centered cheese is known the world-over og:url: https://time.com/4758882/google-doodle-marie-harel-camembert/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd5996c43fba8f211/6988cb0f0b72e325e06ed904/e89ea2e5b995e5bfabe785a7-2017-04-28-e4b88ae58d889-15-57.png?branch=production&width=457&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 457 og:image:height: 257 og:image:alt: cheesedoodle og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Google Doodle Celebrates Inventor of Camembert Marie Harel twitter:description: Harel's soft-centered cheese is known the world-over twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd5996c43fba8f211/6988cb0f0b72e325e06ed904/e89ea2e5b995e5bfabe785a7-2017-04-28-e4b88ae58d889-15-57.png?branch=production&width=457&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Google Doodle Celebrates Marie Harel, the Inventor of Camembert Cheese > Sponsored content. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account. ## Video: How Google Makes its Doodles [Watch (HLS stream): How Google Makes its Doodles](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/upF0qp1E.m3u8) (3:23)  _Published 2018-07-07. Our videographer went to the Googleplex in Mountain View, California to meet some of the designers and coders who create the special, clever variations on the Google.com logo known as_ by [Ryan Kilpatrick](https://time.com/author/ryan-kilpatrick/) ## Ryan Kilpatrick Apr 28, 2017 3:49 AM UTC  Google by [Ryan Kilpatrick](https://time.com/author/ryan-kilpatrick/) ## Ryan Kilpatrick Apr 28, 2017 3:49 AM UTC On what would have been her 256th birthday, Friday’s Google Doodle [honors Marie Harel](https://www.google.com/doodles/marie-harels-256th-birthday), the inventor of Camembert cheese. The story of one of France’s [most popular](http://www.lefigaro.fr/conso/2010/02/04/05007-20100204ARTFIG00534-le-camembert-chahute-par-la-feta-et-la-mozzarella-.php) cheeses goes back to 1791, when Harel was a 30-year-old dairymaid in Vimoutiers in Normandy, northern France. Legend has it that a priest from the northern region of Brie fleeing the anti-clerical French Revolution that was sweeping the country, took shelter near Vimoutiers and taught Harel how to make the soft cheese famous in his home region. Harel added her own twist on the recipe, making her Camembert cheese in smaller wheels and without added cream. She also packaged the finished product in thin, round, wooden containers that have become an international icon. Camembert became a firm fixture in French culture after wheels of the cheese were[ issued](http://www.taste-camembert.com/en/camembert-folklore.php) to soldiers fighting in World War I. Harel’s famous container also made Camembert ideal for transporting across the Atlantic, where it found a new stateside following. Google’s Doodle features a slideshow illustrating how the cheese is made, step by step. ## Transcript [00:01] >>The Doodle [00:07] team was able to meet Ira Glass from This American Life, [00:10] and he was just meeting us for fun. I guess, I'm not even [00:13] sure why he was here, but we talked about potentially [00:17] collaborating and they thought that it'd be fun to collaborate [00:21] with us on Valentine's Day, so I took the lead on [00:25] this project. [00:34] >>We do Valentine's Day pretty much every year, and [00:36] we've done your typical like lovebirds and, you know, [00:39] flowers and things like that. But Ira and his [00:44] team are awesome. [00:44] >>They were able to pull stories that they have collected [00:47] over the years, they've recorded new stories for us, and [00:49] they're all about love in all different respects of the word. [00:55] They sent us maybe 8 or 10 stories and they're all really [00:58] fun and really sweet. [00:59] >>The stories run the [ unk ]. There is [01:03] a story about middle school love. [01:03] >>I was in the cafeteria, just got [01:07] on a drink of root beer and she walks up to me. [01:11] >>There is a story about a new bride who's in doubt that [01:14] she made a mistake. [01:14] >>My husband, me and I, we're just so worried, his face I [01:14] could tell. I said, " Where he could be ," you know, and [01:20] I-- and I called the police because I thought [01:24] he got lost or something happened. [01:28] >>When I first got the audio from Ira, my co- worker and I [01:31] listened to it together and we wrote down bullet points of [01:34] where we wanted to have a little drawing come up. [01:37] >>One of my favorite stories, it involves middle schoolers. [01:43] We're titling it, " Puppy Love" so true to the title, I just-- I just [01:46] drew everyone as a dog. [01:47] >>Each stories are-- containing a little candy heart. [01:47] >>And when you click on it, the heart will flip, [01:52] the audio will play and you will also see the images that [01:55] we've drawn to accompany the phrases. So, [01:59] now we are all going to brainstorms together because we [02:02] need the creative side and we also need the technical side [02:04] to tell us what is possible and what isn't possible. For this [02:08] one, it's a pretty conservative on the interactive side, [02:12] because we didn't want to overshadow the audio. When I [02:15] first started, they were no engineers on the team, we only [02:17] did static doodles, but since then, we've started doing more [02:21] animated stuff, more interactive work, and for that we [02:24] needed a dedicated team. [02:24] >>Some of our most like ambitious to those have come [02:26] from engineers that are just incredibly talented [02:30] and spare similar time for our projects. [02:33] >>Sometimes the illustrators will come up with an idea that [02:36] is way too wacky and just not possible yet. The technology [02:41] hasn't been invented, but sometimes we're too [02:43] conservative and it's great to have the engineers there to [02:46] tell us that we can actually be way wackier with our ideas. [02:53] The relationship with my engineer on this was to just keep [02:56] my files size at a reasonable capacity, I was getting [03:00] a little bit ambitious with how many frames I wanted to draw [03:03] and my engineers said, " Hey, you need to double it ." [03:07] >>We tried to do as many doodles as we possibly can. [03:08] We're a pretty small team, relative to how many audiences [03:11] are out there [ unk ], but yeah, we-- you never know what [03:14] you're gonna get. 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