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Submitted via IRC for takyon
After years of lobbying, industrial producers are now allowed to make camembert with pasteurised milk. As a result, one of France's beloved cheeses may be disappearing – for good.
Source: http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20180618-the-end-to-a-french-cheese-tradition
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The End to a French Cheese Tradition?
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TAPPING? You POLITICIANS! Don't you realize that the END of the "Wash
Cycle" is a TREASURED MOMENT for most people?!
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday June 26 2018, @06:10PM (1 child)
The issue is what they're allowed to call what they make.
They've been allowed to call this mass produced cheese made from pasteurized Holstein milk as 'Camembert cheese' for a long time, yet there's a very good argument that it's not Camembert cheese at all, at most it's a cheap 'Camembert style' of cheese, but not the real thing.
In a perfect world consumers would see through such things but in the real world it does seem to cause measurable confusion, and market distortions result.
I'm not taking a side, I just don't think it's accurate to say this is about what they're allowed to make, rather than what they're allowed to call what they make.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday June 26 2018, @06:37PM
To be clear, according to TFA, "Camembert" cheese is now produced around the world. The particular dispute in this case is that "Camembert de Normandie" was a restricted designation which denoted specific production methods. Cheesemakers in Normandy who refused to adhere to these restrictions instead put "Fabriqué en Normandie" on their labels. Justifiably, some of the "Camembert de Normandie" cheesemakers -- only about 10% of the overall production from Normandy -- thought this was confusing to consumers, but those "in the know" still could find the kind of cheese they wanted.
The concern here was not only over pasteurization, but also over some other aspects of the cheesemaking process, and particularly the use of Normande cows, which produce a richer milk with a different flavor profile. Most of the industrial producers who use pasteurized milk also just use Holstein or other cows that are bred to produce more milk more quickly and easily. (Holstein milk, even though it's the standard in the U.S., is generally pretty bland, and has become blander over the years as Holsteins are bred to produce ridiculous quantities of milk per cow these days.)
The compromise that was made here is that the folks who manage the "Camembert de Normandie" designation wanted to preserve some of the flavor of the overall cheese that comes from their region, I guess. So, they compromised by allowing pasteurization and the use of the "Camembert de Normandie" designation as long as the dairies who use that designation agree to use Normande cows.
So, a distinctive cow breed will likely be preserved better, and perhaps the overall flavor of "camembert" coming out of Normandy will improve because of it. But some other traditional elements (the unpasteurized processing) will be lost as a required component of the "Camembert de Normandie" designation.