I was hoping to order a favorite French cheese for an upcoming class, but the distributor had unwelcome news for me. “We haven’t had it for months,” she said. “The producer stopped making it.” Her reporting turned out to be largely, but not entirely, accurate. There was more to the story.
Read moreRemember Morbier?
After a nine-year absence, real Morbier is returning to American cheese counters. If you didn’t realize it was missing, that’s probably because multiple faux Morbiers have attempted to fill in the gap. The photogenic cheese with the ash ripple in the middle has been MIA since 2014, victim of the uproar we’ll call Ashgate. Thanks to our vigilant FDA, Americans have been protected for the past several years from a cheese that the French have been enjoying for two centuries. Are you ready to take a risk and eat some raw-milk Morbier again?
Read moreCheese Under Fire
America’s artisan cheesemakers have fought several David-versus-Goliath battles with the FDA in recent years. The agency has threatened to ban aging on wooden shelves, to outlaw ash in cheese (that pretty gray ripple in Humboldt Fog) and to implement unattainable standards for raw-milk cheese. The FDA is supposed to protect public health, but there’s little science to support these proposals.
Read moreThese Cheeses Need You
Raw-milk beauty: Landaff
When a friend needs your help, you show up, right? That’s how I feel about raw-milk cheese. If you believe cheesemakers should be allowed—even encouraged—to make cheese according to time-honored methods, then find a Raw Milk Cheese Appreciation Day event in your community and be there on Saturday, April 21.
Read moreFrom Ashes to Ashes
Persillé de Rambouillet
Here we go again. Last week, the FDA detained a shipment of goat cheese from French producer Fromagerie Jacquin, declaring that the ash coating was not a permitted colorant. This ash, made by carbonizing vegetable matter, is what makes the dark ribbon in Morbier and the inky cloak on the Loire Valley’s famous Sainte-Maure and Valençay, which the French have been savoring since the days of Napoleon.
Read moreGone for Good?
It felt like a death in the family. And I didn’t even get to say goodbye. Learning that I might never again taste Abbaye de Belloc, one of my favorite French cheeses, made me frustrated and angry. (What are those four stages of grief?) The Benedictine monks who make this lovely Basque sheep cheese have decided not to share with the U.S. any longer. Who can blame them? And, alas, they aren’t the only European cheesemakers to reach this decision.
Read moreBrave or Foolish?
What does it take to get American cheese into a European cheese shop? And will anybody buy it if you do? Raymond Hook, a New York City-based specialty-food broker, is close to someanswers. Working with partners, Hook is attempting to build a global audience for cheeses from Oregon’s Rogue Creamery, Virginia’s Meadow Creek Dairy and Georgia’s Sweet Grass Dairy, among others. The export learning curve has left a few bruises, but Hook is an optimist. Today: London. Tomorrow: the world.
Read moreRaw Milk Manifesto
Always Raw: (clockwise from top) 5 Spoke Tumbleweed; Meadow Creek Grayson; Matos St. George; Grafton Village 2-Year Cheddar
Aged cheeses made with raw milk are dwindling in number, in part because FDA scrutiny makes the future uncertain for cheesemakers who choose to work in this traditional way. Even so, some persist. I’ve asked several leading cheesemakers who work exclusively with raw milk to tell us why they bother.
Read moreAsh is Back
Remember the missing Morbier? Over the past two years, the FDA detained several imported cheeses because they contained vegetable ash, an ingredient the agency considered a non-permitted colorant. Never mind that European cheesemakers have been using ash for centuries—largely to make the surface of acidic cheeses more hospitable to good molds. Numerous scientific reviews have found nothing scary about ash.
Read moreRaw Deal
Will you miss them when they’re gone? America’s raw-milk cheeses haven’t been outlawed—yet—but they are definitely under threat. The FDA is currently scrutinizing this tiny sliver of the dairy world and considering heightened regulations. Although an outright ban strikes me as unlikely, the agency may well make compliance so onerous and expensive that many raw-milk cheese producers will toss in the towel.
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