The European immigrants who settled in the U.S. more than a century ago and began reproducing the cheeses of their homeland couldn’t have imagined we would be arguing about their creations today. These newcomers, not surprisingly, marketed their cheeses with the names they knew: asiago, romano, brie, parmesan, feta. Today, the EU protests that American cheesemakers have no right to these names and insists we stop using them. And the American producers tell the EU to take a hike. These are generic names now, the argument goes. They belong to no one.
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