Cancoillotte: The TikTok Cheese Changing the Way France Eats

About this episode

Cancoillotte is gloopy, smelly, difficult to pronounce (CON-KWAH-YOWT), and suddenly all over French TikTok. The centuries-old cheese from Franche-Comté has been reinvented as a low-fat, high-protein fitness food, becoming France’s unlikely answer to America’s cottage-cheese obsession. But its rise reveals something much bigger, the way French attitudes toward food may be changing. Caroline and Emily trace cancoillotte from its origins as a way to use leftover skim milk through wartime industrialization, French spelling fame and its current TikTok explosion. Along the way, they ask what happens when a food culture traditionally built around pleasure, moderation and terroir begins talking about protein, fat and macros. Podcast Show NotesCancoillotte has spent centuries as a deeply regional specialty of Franche-Comté. In 2026, it suddenly became a national fitness trend. Its unusual nutritional profile helps explain the appeal: cancoillotte contains relatively little fat compared with many cheeses, although the episode questions the viral framing of it as an exceptionally high-protein food. Much of the difference comes down to something decidedly less glamorous: water. The sto