This afternoon I stopped off at my local branch of the Sainsbury’s supermarket chain to get something for dinner. I picked up a prepared ham and mushroom tagliatelle to heat up in the microwave when I got home. However, I like a lot of cheese on my pasta, so I headed off the the cheese section looking for some parmesan. I walked past all the cheeses in the store, and couldn’t see it. I then walked past all the cheeses again, and still couldn’t see it.
On the third pass, I saw a sign on the shelf which said
Sainsbury’s Parmesan is now Sainsbury’s Italian Grated Cheese. Same product, new pack.
(I didn’t have a digital camera with me to photograph the sign, and of course I wouldn’t dream of stealing a sign off the shelf of a privately owned shop, particularly when it is doing something useful like helping people find their correct cheese).
Yes, it is the type of EU law Gabriel Syme was talking about recently, in which the EU has been drawing up lists of geographical (and other) names used for food products, and has been insisting that the names be used only on food produced in that exact place. Cheese that does not come from the Parma area can no longer be called parmesan.
Now, this is problematic, because as I use the word, “parmesan” is a name for a particular type of strong flavoured hard cheese. Yes, it is named after Parma where a lot of such cheese is made, but I personally have no expectation that something called “parmesan” does actually come from there. I do expect that it will be hard, will have a particular flavour, and that it will taste good on my pasta. (If a cheese does come from Parma and does not satisfy these requirements, then I do not think it should be called “parmesan”).
I have no difficulty with a law that requires it to be clear on the packaging whether a “parmesan” cheese comes from Parma or not. There is already another more specific name for cheeses that do, which is “Parmigiano-Reggiano”, and I have little problem with this name being restricted to cheeses from Parma, because it has never become generic. Really, though, if the word has become so generic that there is no intent to deceive about the origins of the cheese, then banning all use of the word otherwise is going too far.
I think that geographical names are like any other trademarks. If they are not defended, they can be lost. And if they are lost, they cannot be retrieved. And this present EU policy overreaches badly. The law is ridiculously extreme. Not only can you not say that cheese that is not from parma cannot be called “parmesan cheese”, you may not use the word “parmesan” in any wayon the packaging. You cannot say that it is “parmesan style” cheese. You cannot say that it is “Similar to permesan cheese”. You cannot even say that “This is not parmesan cheese”. You are reduced to things like “Italian grated cheese”, which doesn’t really get the message across. There are lots of cheeses made in Italy, and virtually all of them can be grated, but most of them are not what I want. Supermarkets are allowed to put up signs saying that the name has changed but the product is the same (as I mentioned) but only for a finite time. Basically though, it just amounts to protection. I want to buy some parmesan style cheese. I don’t care if it actually comes from Parma. However, the new regulations make it impossible for me to find any such cheese except the one from Parma, so that is what I buy. Or at least that is the intention.
The EU is enforcing such rules internally, because they can then argue for similar rules to apply outside the EU, and the EU believes that there are more such names in Europe than elsewhere. “We respect trademarks of this kind within the EU, and you should therefore respect our trademarks outside the EU, and prevent non-EU farmers from using European geographical names on their products”. They may or may not get other countries to go along, depending on whether the other countries value the EU as an export market. Ideally, they would like these rules written into the WTO. Presumably their hope is that consumers in the US, and Australia, and elsewhere will buy their cheese rather than some other product if it has the more famous name on it rather than the other name.
So it sounds bad? Well, if I was David Carr, I would say that yes, it sounds bad. And that is because it is bad. In fact, it is even worse than that. However, I am not David Carr.
This policy does demonstrate the EU’s protectionist and bureacratic instincts, but it ultimately assumes that consumers are stupid. And they aren’t. For EU farmers to benefit, these name changes would have to stop consumers actually buying the products that they are buying now. And I don’t think they will. I actually bought the “Italian grated cheese” and not the much more expensive “parmesan” and although I had a sign to help me, I might well have figured it out even if I hadn’t. Certainly after three or four trips to the supermarket I would have figured it out. If there are high quality, cheaper products with different names on them, then consumers will find them. If they are not allowed to use an existing generic name, then eventually all that will happen is someone will make up a new one. It may even be that in ten years time the French or European farmers are actually disadvantaged by the fact that they use the old name.
In fact, I can give a good example where this has happened already, from the world of Australian wine.
Many of the best red wines in Australia are made from the grape variety that is known in France as syrah. Until recently in Australia, two names were commonly used for the grape variety. One of these was hermitage, and the other was shiraz. Both of these are actually geographical names. Hermitage is in the northern Rhone valley, just south of Lyon, and Shiraz is in Iran. Both places are connected with the grape variety in question. It appears that it originated in Shiraz, and was at some point brought to France. Some of the most famous wines French wines made from it are in the Hermitage area.
French authorities claimed that if Australia kept using the hermitage name, then Australian wines would be confused with French wines from Hermitage, and that Australia should therefore stop using it. Australia agreed (although given that the most famous and expensive Australian wine that had the hermitage name on it is today more expensive and famous than any French Hermitage, then it is debatable whose reputation would have been hurt if there had been confusion). Australia now exclusively uses the shiraz name on its wines made with this grape variety. (There presumably aren’t a great many winemakers in Shiraz to object). Australia has marketed its shirazes very successfully in Europe, particularly in Britain, and Australian shiraz sells for a significantly higher price than French syrah. In short, by selling and promoting a high quality product with a new generic name, Australia has actually done better than they would have done if they retained the old one. Ultimately it is not the name on the product that matters, but the quality of the product. Ultimately, regulating the names of products is much less damaging than regulating the products themselves, because consumers can still buy them. And focusing on the name and not the product is always, in the long run counterproductive. I read yesterday in the Times (to which Samizdata does not link) about a French winemaker producing for the British market who put the grape variety “shiraz” on the labels of his wine. Now there is nothing dishonest about this, as the wine was indeed made from that grape and the name is a generic name used in Australia, South Africa, Argentina and elsewhere. Sales immediately doubled. However, the wine label police told him to stop it, as EU law requires that French wines use the French name syrah and not the Australian name shiraz. Once he did this, sales dropped by 60%. So much for protecting French names).
Plus, annoying your customers is never a good idea.
And that’s ultimately how I feel about the EU’s moves on this issue. In the long run it is likely to be more damaging to them than to anyone else. But in the short term it is really annoying, and frankly rather patronising.
Hmmm… Lymeswold…
(Though probably not at twenty to one in the morning).
You would also have wonder whether Parma has the capacity to produce all the worlds pamesan.
Is the cheese that was formally called Parmesean really from Italy? You said it said “Grated Italian Cheese” now, right? I think I got the loophole. Call it “Greated Italian Cheese”. “Greated” is in “Great Britan”. Then go all the way with it to “Greated Parmesean Cheese”. And then sue the pantaloons off any continental that uses the word “great” in their products.
“and of course I wouldn’t dream of stealing a sign off the shelf of a privately owned shop, particularly when it is doing something useful like helping people find their correct cheese).”
Yes but you add your own comments. No?
Although I agree with your point, I’d rather go cheeseless on my pasta than eat some of the vile impersonators passing themselves off as “Parmesan” cheese. I”d rather pay a little extra for Reggiano because it tastes infinitely better.
Icidentally, what will this do to Veal Parmesan? If it does not use actual Parmesan cheese in the recipe, will it beforced to call itself Veal Italian-Style? That wouldn’t work.
Would it be illegal to call it “parmesan-style” cheese? Or “cheese formerly known as parmesan”? Or “hard chese with a flavour that closely resembles parmesan but does not come from Parma”?
Possibilities for new names are endless. Maybe EU can set up new naming agency.
“the EU has been drawing up lists of geographical (and other) names used for food products, and has been insisting that the names be used only on food produced in that exact place”
So, why then exactly did so many of the French and other EUrophiles get their panties in a knot when some people here in the US renamed French fries to Freedom fries? These “fries” obviously weren’t produit de France.
It is a general rule of economics that those who practise the greatest protection become the greatest long term losers. Since this is mostly a type of protection, one has to expect that they will lose, though the manner in which they lose may not be predictable. And they may gain some short term benefits during the transition period.
Ultimately, though, they are relying on restricting competition rather than improving their value to their customers. This is surely a losing strategy.
Then you have sales harmed by all of the peeved libertarians intentionally not buying the ‘authentic’ product out of spite. I know that’s what I would do, even if I was paying for someone to fly it over from Parma before.
So when will the name Cheddar get protection?
Just joking, but the Cheddar example does show how ridiculous it is.
There will be no protection for Cheddar ’cause it is cheese for the proles.
I didn’t even know that Cheddar originated in France, despite being aware of other cheeses having originated there. If I had to choose between Cheddar made in France, “Wisconsin” cheese, or the sorry stuff made here in California, I’d choose the product of Wisconsin under any name.
I doubt that the original Cheddar of France bears any more resemblance to Wisconsin Cheddar than the California crud does.
The point being that a couple hundred million Americans associate Cheddar with Wisconsin and no silly law or even marketing French Cheddar here in the states will change that.
Katherine:
Pasteurized processed cheese slices, Velveeta, “American” cheese, Colby, and Longhorn are for the proles. Real Cheddar is for us bourgeoisie.
Sporklift – Cheddar cheese originated in Cheddar, England, back in the Middle Ages, or even before. Leicester cheese originated in Leicester. Caerphilly originated in Caerphilly, Wales. Etc. France has absolutely no relation to fine old British cheeses in any fashion. It doesn’t even produce a form of Cheddar. The French do not do well with hard cheeses.
As far as Cheddar goes, the original English is best. Wisconsin Cheddar and other American Cheddars, with the exception of NY Sharp, are tasteless and rubbery. Some New Zealand Cheddar is good, though. Cheddar cheese should be sharp and crumbly. It is the king of cheeses.
High quality cheddar is made in lots of places in England, however, not just in Cheddar. (Actually, I should say Britain, because I have tasted excellent Scottish and Welsh examples, too). I haven’t tried any of the US cheeses so I can’t comment, but my native Australia makes one or two good ones also. I agree with EU Delenda Est though – of the ones I have tasted the British varieties are generally the best, and we are often talking exceptionally high quality cheese. (Sharp and crumbly mature English cheddar. Mmmmmm).
“and of course I wouldn’t dream of stealing a sign off the shelf of a privately owned shop, particularly when it is doing something useful like helping people find their correct cheese).”
How long have you been dreaming about stealing other things?
I understand that the outstanding quality of English Cheddar – in fact, what makes it Cheddar – is the kind of earth that produces the grass the cows graze on. I think this kind of grass is only found in a few places.
Well, you could always switch to Grana Padano.
All told, if this little thing winds you up, I have to asume you lead a very sad life.
Lisa – I can only assume you didn’t read the whole article. EU beaucratic arrogance, protectionism, lack of understanding of how markets work and a patronising/fascist attitude to the electorates of EU countries who requested none of the above, and, indeed, the rest of the world, is not a little thing. We are discussing the iron fist of a growing monolithic dictatorship. You may not be aware that any overseas supplier selling anything over the internet to a citizen resident in an EU country is now required to collect VAT (value added tax) on behalf of the EU and remit it to the country in which the purchaser lives. The EU’s tentacles are now reaching outside the EU.
How many companys in the EU will go out of business because of this ??……..and by extension, how many people will be rendered unemployed ??
Bakewell tarts, Dundee cake, Eccles cake, Cornish pasties, Welsh rarebit, Melton Mowbray pies, Aberdeen Angus, Lancashire hotpot, Cumberland sausage, Glasgow kiss…
…must these all now be made in the place of their names?
This is silly.
Kevin pointed out that protectionists are the losers in the long run. Some years back the french forced Australian wine producers to stop styling their wines Chablis, Burgundy and so on.
Well the Australians got over it and rebranded their wines, promoting grape varieties as well as authentic Australian place names.
Result. This year Australian wine exports to Britain will exceed those of France for the first time.
Shaun Bourke – The faceless, unelected bureaucrats who make these laws and send these directives down to elected national governments for immediate, undebated, incorporation into national laws have no familiarity, in theory or practice, with the world of capitalism. They go straight from their lefty universities to the taypayer-funded trough without passing Go and spend their entire “working” lives there before taking retirement on generous taxpayer-funded pensions, at age 50.
EU-bashing is great fun of course, and mostly justified, but surely the subject under discussion is just trademark protection – no bad thing? I don’t think there’s enough here to trigger off another bout of mouth-frothing over the devils incarnate in Brussels, and whoever brought the French into it was misguided because, well, it’s a red rag to a bull.. Loved the “French Cheddar” thing above, great fun. I’d like to be assured that my Parmigiano comes from Parma, rather than Patagonia or Mongolia. Mind you, there’s no EU consistency here, since an awful lot of “Italian” olive oil comes from elsewhere but is re-badged by Italian wholesalers.
Mark Holland – did your parents honeymoon in the Netherlands? If not, you could be in breach of regulations! :0)
But having considered it all, I think this is just another “hard cheese” story from Mr Jennings. ;0)
I once brought the topic of Italian olive oil up at a Greek dinner party.The responses were either expressed with such hilarity or indignation that I couldn’t get a sensible word from my hosts, or the other guests, for the rest of the evening. But of the Chesire and Chedder cheeses that I took – it was the Cheshire than was entirely eaten.
They still had the Brie I had brought the year before. It still wasn’t “mature”…
I don’t know, Tony. When is a trademark not a trademark? When it’s been used as a generic descriptor for hundreds of years, maybe.
As for the French being off-topic in this thread, check out the list of protected brands:
Wines and spirits:
Bordeaux,
Bourgogne,
Chablis,
Champagne,
Chianti,
Cognac,
Grappa (di Barolo, del Piemonte, di Lombardia, del Trentino, del Friuli, del Veneto, dell’Alto Adige),
Graves,
Malaga,
Marsala,
Madeira,
Medoc,
Moselle,
Porto,
Rhin,
Rioja,
Sauternes,
Sherry
Meats:
Jambon de Bayonne,
Prosciutto di Parma,
Prosciutto di San Daniele
Cheese:
Asiago,
Danablu,
Fontina,
Gorgonzola,
Grana Padano,
Manchego,
Mozzarella di Bufala Campagna,
Neufchatel,
Parmiggiano Reggiano,
Pecorino Romano,
Reblochon,
Roquefort,
Stilton
Seem a little…Romance heavy and Anglo light to you? Well, there’s Stilton, hurrah! And the Greeks are hopping mad that feta cheese, ouzo and Kalamata olives didn’t make the endangered species list.
Still…never mind. Just as well. I’m with those who think the ‘official’ products will be the losers here, when people get used to buying products under new names.
Tony H:
No. Though the post and a number of comments mention trademarks these aren’t trademarks in the usual sense. They don’t serve to protect an existing business from passing-off by competitors. What they do is protect an arbitrarily defined geographical region and all producers new or old within it.
At best this serves to protect consumers from deceptive use of such names (and the language of gastronomy from loss of useful distinctions), but in its widest application is closer to being a subtle form of local economic protectionism. The EU’s motivation is transparently the latter, though of course it has to claim the former for WTO purposes.
I surprised none of the other posters have picked up on the obvious point: why were you buying pre-grated cheese? Buying a block of Parmesan and grating it yourself, a little at a time as needed, not only works out cheaper, but infinitely tastier.
And, as someone else said, this is a matter of trademark protection, not EU meddling. Try this as a thought experiment. You go to a supermarket and buy a bottle of ketchup from the normal place. When you open it at home you find some thin vinegary red goo and not the usual lusciously thick crimson paste you love. On examining the label more closely, you find that you have in fact bought a bottle of Hein’s Tomato Ketchup. Wouldn’t you be pissed off? Don’t you think the Heinz brand deserves protection against such rip-off competition? Of course you do.
If big multi-national companies like Heinz, Gucci, Adidas etc are entitled to the protection of the law, why shouldn’t small regional producers also get the same protection?
Michael you are out of order on this one.
Well done the Italians for insisting on their name being used only for the real thing, and shame on you for buying that horrible tasteless pre-grated muck.
If we’d defended the Cheddar name in the same way, it would not now be applied to every kind of rubbery factory-produced ersatz cheese in the world.
The Champagne producers have the same deal; good for them too.
I’m thankful this is not a problem in the US. Of course, our fine trademark laws prohibit the use of generic or descriptive names as protectable marks, including place names by themselves, or varieties of products. Still, I can certainly understand the French and Italian vineyards and cheesemakers wanting these protections, since they feel their markets shrinking and artisans of comestibles are notoriously conservative of market.
One of my French roommates (back when I went to Edinburgh University) remarked that it would be a cold day in hell when the best wines and cheeses came from America. That day is fast approaching, if not already here, and it’s mostly because of a combination of market protectionism and America’s passion for pasteurizing cheese.
As for cheddars not from Cheddar, I would recommend a good Vermont cheddar. Also, there are some fine Canadian cheddars. For a true American cheese experience, I recommend Maytag Farms cheeses. They are the home of the famous Maytag Blue Cheese, a hand-seeded blue that is the American standard, our counterpart to Stilton, Roquefort, and Gorgonzola.
If big multi-national companies like Heinz, Gucci, Adidas etc are entitled to the protection of the law, why shouldn’t small regional producers also get the same protection?
Small regional producers have exactly the same trademark protection as large corporations.
Geographic areas used as product descriptors are neither small regional producers nor trademarks.
Actually, after reading some of the posts, I’m going to do a volte face on this. If a region’s families, through their industry and good husbandry, have through the centuries built up a fine reputation for producing the best of a particular product, why should others, who may not produce to the same standards, be allowed to horn in on the name? I think I was so negative because it was being organised by the unelected trough swillers in Brussels.
As an, ahem, Wisconsin, resident, I can assure you that there are absolutely top-notch “artisanal” cheeses, including a variety of soi-disant “Cheddars”, being produced in the Dairy State.
Really, quality cheese and other products has more to do in the modern age with the quality of the producer, rather than said producer’s geographic location.
Anyone who thinks that they can protect market share by protecting a brand name or regional designation without also producing a quality product is sadly mistaken. I think the Aussie (and California) wine experience is instructive in this regard – they have captured market share based purely on quality (and price), regardless of whether they were using Francophone terminology or not.
For the record, geographic names are not comparable to trademarks – if they were, then the EU could just run these designators through the trademark system. The fact that they do not tells you that something else is going on.
“If a region’s families, through their industry and good husbandry, have through the centuries built up a fine reputation for producing the best of a particular product, why should others, who may not produce to the same standards, be allowed to horn in on the name?”
All the region’s “families” have to do is engage in honest marketing and advertising – “this is the real deal! Parma ham from Parma!” If their quality outstrips that of their competition, competent marketing and continued quality are all they need. Not government-granted protections against competition. If they cannot beat their foreign competitors on quality, then government protection won’t save them.
Good American Cheeses?
Certainly not until you stop pasturizing the flavour out of them and certainly not until somebody realises what a “sharp” cheddar really tastes like and stops the supermarkets selling 400 types of cheese all of which are the same taste and consistency as a 1kg lump of Kraft slices.
As a cheese lover I found living in the US to be pretty depressing indeed.
Californian wine is pretty good though. While it is possible to get amazing French wine its a hell of a lot harder than people think and its very very easy to get something which borders on undrinkable.
Re above, I think its worthwhile pointing out that Stilton has been removed from the list – at British insistence and for the reasons set out above – its not going to help Stilton as a place or stilton as a product.
There is of course a problem in “just running” any geographical names into the trade mark system.
The main one being that generally speaking placenames cannot be used as trademarks because it is “received wisdom” that any advantage to the holder would be outweighed by the disadvantage to the rest of the population.
For example, a business would be at a great disadvantage if it could not use the name of its home town or area in its communications. Even the threat of a frivilous law suit is a deterrent.
I believe the same logic was applied to the principle that a font or type face, per se, not being copyrightable.
The EU administrations effort is probably as a result of this “technical difficulty” and a wish to promote strongly held regional identities in replacement for diminishing national identities.
Under the new rules, I wonder if I am allowed to make “french dressing” at home? Next time I go to France I shall make a whole batch – just in case! I haven’t tried the new freedom dressing on sale but I hear tastes a bit pasteurised.
Perhaps we should start using “Klingon” place names or maybe the b-eurocrats can supply some place names form the parrallel universe they inhabit.
“Cloud 9” wine anyone?
Where did I put that bottle of Illinois Urbana Champagne?
Someone mentioned champagne? Swiss champagne storm bubbles over
Switzerland’s relations with the European Union are being put to the test in a battle over who has the right to use the name champagne.
Switzerland, which is not a member of the EU, has agreed a series of bilateral accords with Brussels, which come into force at the start of June.
Under the terms of one of the accords the Swiss village of Champagne will no longer be able to give its name to the wine it produces.
The Swiss Government agreed to the clause at the insistence of France.
I knew that someone would accuse me of being a cultural barbarian for buying pre-grated cheese before too long. Martin Adamson wins. Truthfully, I was just in a hurry, and I wanted to eat my dinner with as little effort at all.
EDE: Actually, after reading some of the posts, I’m going to do a volte face on this. If a region’s families, through their industry and good husbandry, have through the centuries built up a fine reputation for producing the best of a particular product, why should others, who may not produce to the same standards, be allowed to horn in on the name?
If this is genuinely the case, then I have no trouble with it either. If a name is commonly used in such a way that the name implies to the consumer that the product was produced in the geographical location implied by the name, and if other people are using the name to take advantage of the good reputation of producers in that place, then I have no real problem with allowing people in that place to use the name exclusively. There are certain cases where this is so (especially in the world of wine) and I am not especially bothered by these
However, what is happening here is that the EU is arguing that just because a name is geographical in its origins, then the people from that place should have complete control over the use of the name, regardless of whether the word has become generic over the years/decades/centuries. As I see it, this is clear overreach.
There is a reason for this restriction. Parmigiano-Reggiano is a very specific cheese, which can only be made with milk from a certain breed of cow, and using a special process. Grana Padano, for instance, is a close relative, but is not Parmigiano and does not have all the overheads associated with it. They are fairly easily distinguishable even to an inexpert palate.
However, cheese sold as “parmesan” in the UK contains all manner of things, sometimes nowehere near to Parmigiano-Reggiano or even to Grana.
Anyway, by the criterion of being hard, grateable and tasting good on pasta, Pecorino could be sold as “parmesan”… NOT what we want at all!
Michael Jennings – Yes, I agree, in some instances there is an overreach. As in the Swiss village of Champagne no longer being allowed to label the wine it produces Champagne. What were the Swiss thinking of agreeing to this piece of bullying? And they’re armed, too!
I regret to say that this is, indeed, also a problem in the U.S. Only catfish caught in or near Mississippi can be called “catfish”; Vietnamese catfish need to be called something else– I think they are still trying to work out a new product-identity.
If Xerox, Band-Aid, and White-Out can lose trademark protection, why not Parmesian, Burgundy wine, etc.?
I have a non-educated palate, I guess. When I purchase parmesan cheese I rarely look at the country of origin. I’m concerned with price and taste. If I can save money and purchase a parmesan cheese product that tastes good on my food I don’t care if it’s not the ‘real thing’.
I don’t see why a label, on the front of the product, can’t be placed stating “This cheese not from Parma”. We’ve been using the term parmesan cheese to denote a cheese’s taste, not a brand or place of origin. I never considered parmesan cheese to be a brand.
How will I be able to order locally-made Bologna? Is there another term for it?
Fair enough maybe promoting honest labelling – but the free market is better than laws at that. Pure protectionism is the case of parma ham – which is a protected name, but it also has to be sliced in Parma, if you get parma ham and slice it to sell elsewhere it ceases to be parma ham! See
http://www.ananova.com/business/story/sm_783196.html?menu=
Scipio:
I don’t think Maytag Blue is really comparable to Stilton — not that it isn’t a good cheese, but it’s more like a Danish blue — a saltier, more tangy but ultimately simpler and less satisfying taste than the complex richness of Stilton. Here in New Jersey, I used to be able to get Colston-Bassett, but lately it’s been Borough Market. Of course, for all I know, we’re getting the seconds over here — have to wait till my next U.K. trip to compare.
Dave O’Neill:
Do you live anywhere near a Whole Foods market? They have excellent cheese counters that get decent supplies of raw-milk cheeses.
Scipio: While the US does not get into such silliness as ensuring that only cheese from Parma, Italy is called parmesan (or however you want to spell it), we do have other stupid rules including a USDA rule that states what a frozen pizza can be made of, being explicit in the ingredients, in the interest of protecting a consumer from “economic deception”.
Oh nearest Whole Foods was about 15 miles so we didn’t go all that often. However, the issue I have is I can buy good cheese in any local supermarket in the UK. Even my local petrol station has some excellent cheddars – the local Safeway, Albertsons and so forth only sold rubbish.
There was a specialist supermarket where, at great expense, I could by imports.
Dave:
Interesting perspective. I simply don’t expect chain supermarkets to have quality food — to us, they’re just for cleaning products and the like (and even that function is being supplanted by the ever-larger Target department stores they’re building around here).
Scipio wrote:
For a true American cheese experience, I recommend Maytag Farms cheeses. They are the home of the famous Maytag Blue Cheese, a hand-seeded blue that is the American standard, our counterpart to Stilton, Roquefort, and Gorgonzola.
Eeeewwww. I don’t know if I want my cheese produced in a washing machine! 🙂
Having said that, I wonder why the washing machine folks haven’t had Maytag Farms investigated for trademark violation?
Rick J: at least in N. Texas, you are wrong about the catfish.
I doubt that much of the catfish eaten in that area is brought in from Mississippi – it’s caught locally.
But they still call it catfish.
Tim: Interesting perspective. I simply don’t expect chain supermarkets to have quality food
That’s interesting, because here in Britain I definitely do. I find Sainsbury’s particularly good in this regard. The company is generally considered to be worse run than Tescos (and in terms of logistics I think this is true) but in terms of the interesting and high quality things to eat and drink that they sell, they are very good.
There once was talk of having an equivalent of “Appellation Controlee” for beers, but nothing came of it.
I just look at http://www.bottledbeer.co.uk instead
Supermarket quality has improved dramatically in the UK in the last 20 years and good supermarkets were something I sorely missed in California.
My personal favourite has to be Waitrose which is just amazing. Even Safeway and Asda (Walmart) carry much specialist food.
Huh. I would rate any supermarket I use in the greater Boston area as easily superior to the average in the greater London area.
Though, I admit, we have an alarming insufficiency of Mr Brain’s Frozen Faggots.
In any discussion of cheese one must not forbear to point out that Stilton is no good any more.
It became all salty and bitter and disgusting when they started using pasteurised milk, which may have been an EU diktat, but was more likely an EU guideline “gold-plated” by the UK Govt.
Anyway it’s no longer worth buying.
Personally, I’m just dreading the day some Eurocrat realises there’s a town in France called Orange.
The USA has some silly rules like this as well. ‘Washington Apples’ – which sell at a higher price than other apples – must not only be grown in Washington but boxed there as well. ‘Wild Rice’ used to be called that only if it is harvested by members of the Chippewa Indians (or Manoomin or White Earth, I’m not really sure).
Come to think of it, Washington state and Washington D.C. have a few issues to work out now.
As far as cheese goes – I asked my sister, an executive at one of the worlds largest cheese firms, if location made any difference in the quality of cheese produced. At that time she was director of international accounting, supervising plants in places like Mexico and India. She told me that using different starters, aging times, or cheaper rennet could make a difference, but that was about it. It’s entirely possible to produce crappy cheese in Parma, and to produce good cheese in New York (or old York, or any York).
The move to trademark brands for areas, rather than for companies, will reduce quality. If all ham or cheese from Parma is assumed to be of the same quality, than companies like the one my sister works for will soon set up processing plants in the protected area and start mass-producing the protected product at the lowest cost possible, trading on the name of the area to charge a high price. Soon, the name will mean nothing. Her company – which really does produce some fine cheeses – also supplies most of the ‘cheese’ to the major fast food companies – could soon be producing tasteless, salty Parmesan, slimy Cheddar, and bland Stilton from ‘local’ plants, while still producing great cheese from other areas.
“Well done the Italians for insisting on their name being used only for the real thing, and shame on you for buying that horrible tasteless pre-grated muck.”
I fail to see how Michael is out of order. That is now the more common name, and it just sucks to be a cheese producer from Parma. I suppose that I should stop saying that I speak “English” because I do not in fact speak a language I learned in England. I speak American, Michael speaks Australian, etc. Of course the language that I speak is somewhat different from the language currently spoken in England, but the name is legitimate.
“If we’d defended the Cheddar name in the same way, it would not now be applied to every kind of rubbery factory-produced ersatz cheese in the world.”
Well, you didn’t, and neither did the Parma cheese producers–it’s just no longer a viable brand. If Coca-Cola had allowed their trademark to be used by every producer of cola from time immemorial, then they would have rightfully lost their right to claim it as a trademark. Had that been the case, Coca-Cola would essentially mean “a carbonated sugared beverage flavored from the cola bean,” which might differ substantially from their secret recipe.
Besides, that terrible-stuff-Americans-call-sharp-Cheddar has its uses. It’s not a fantastic cheese, but few people looking for a fantastic cheese will buy whatever’s labeled Cheddar. For me, living on a very tight budget, there are three kinds of cheddar: the store housebrand (about $3/Lb, OK flavor), the better kind often with “Wisconsin” on the package (about $6-$8/Lb and pretty good), and stuff that’s too expensive to buy, not generally available in grocery store dairy departments. Why should Cheddar apply only to the last one when this is manifestly not the most common and useful usage?