Say Cheese Please!

Recently I lead a cheese tasting (dégustation) for the American Womens Group here in Paris.  Unlike we normally do, we went to one of my favourite fromageries - Griffon, near Ecole Militaire for a group visit of the shop guided by the always affable and totally knowlegeable team of Claire Griffon.  One of the participants, Janet Robbins sent me a link to her blog Postcards From Paris where she posted a great recap of the visit entitled 'Say Cheese Please!'. The article is worth the read as Janet really nailed the essence of the moment and backed the visit up with a good deal of research on my favourite subject -  CHEESE!  

The internet is an amazing thing.  You can find all kinds of useful and useless information, anytime, anywhere.  Following a link from a podcast about the International Cheese Competition, I read a very interesting article, albeit a bit old the other day regarding terroir and cheese.  It was in the Feb 2002 issue of Wine Business Monthly and is called The Terroir of Cheese by Maria Lorraine Binchet.

It is one of the best and most focused discussion of the subject of terroir and cheese I have read.  It describes the main differences between terroir in wine and in cheese and then goes indepth on the subject relative to cheese from the land, to the animals, to the process and the producers, all who add their special piece to the terroir of a fromage. Well worth the read!

Why the EU is crippling French artisanal cheesemakers

When the doyen of all things cheese in America Max McCalman posts an article on his FaceBook page from Newsweek regarding the very sad state of affairs in the  French artisanal cheese world, you need to take notice.  The article entitled French Cheesemakers Crippled by EU Health Measures by Ana Pouvreau and Mark Porter outline the ongoing David and Golith battle between the milk industry and the artisanal cheese makers of not just France but one would imagine elsewhere in the EU.  Unfortunately, this situation has been longstanding and truly has wide reaching effects on the cheesemakers, the small diary farmers and ultimately the consumer.  

Plain and simple, the big guys who want to dominate markets have no tolerance for the little guys. Their industrial processes, cheap, inferior milk and unforgiving bottom lines force them to use their immense power to shape the products available and the political landscape. There is an axiom about too many taxes kill tax, and the same idea can be applied here. Too many mediocre industrial, pasterized cheeses will ultimately obliterate "cheese". 

It has always puzzled me why these industrial conglomerates drive the milk prices down thus destroying the small milk producers, in order to pump out crap, i.e., pasturized, tasteless, long-life "cheese" to control the market with their size, and also feel the need to squeeze out what is perceived as competion by the artisanal cheesmaker creating lait cru (unpasterised) cheese. These giants with deep pockets use thier influence to bury the little producers in regulations that will ultimately, and effectively, outlaw their products.

If people want to buy industrialized products in supermarkets or grocery stores and let them sit in their refigerators for weeks, let them, it is their choice, sad as it may be.  But some of us who want to spend our hard earned cash on more expensive, and what we perceive as better products, then why should we not have that choice and right?  Democracy and freedom of choice at work; market segmentation and profit margin intact...n'est pas?  But no, this is not the mentality of the big agrobusinesses!  Theirs is to dominate and kill off ALL competition. In France, this "competition" represents a meer 10% of the market. What company would not, and should not, be satisfied with that? 

The president of an organization, Fromages de Terroirs, that supports unpasterized cheese producers in France, Veronique RICHEZ-LEROUGE, has waged this battle here in France for quite some time now. So she is now joined by Max McCalman on the American front to say - save our cheese! If it can happen in the EU it also happening in the US! 

We, as supporters of artisanal producer, the diversity of our regional countryside and our terroir must not let this situation deteriorate further. A way of life is at stake as well as our own health. This is an example of capitalism when it is at it's worst and this course needs to be changed! Please do your part. Stand up and fight! 

Aux armes chers citoyens et citoyennes! Viva la revolution!