India, May 25 -- When Spanish artist Salvador Dali painted his famous surrealist work, The Persistence of Memory (1931; the one with the melting clocks), many thought they represented Albert Einstein's theory of relativity.

The inspiration for the limp watches came, in fact, from a wheel of melting overripe French cheese, "the extravagant and solitary Camembert of time and space", Dali wrote, in a 1935 essay.

This creamy, complex cheese, which can sometimes smell like sweaty feet, is an icon of French culture, appearing in everyday meals in that country and on cheese boards around the world. But it faces a dire threat, warn experts from the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS).

Camembert (named after this region in Nor...