Why Buy Roquefort?

Yes, todays featured cheese is Roquefort. I haven't written about cheese in a while, but I have come to this life altering decision! If I was ever given the impossible choice of living in a world without either cheese or chocolate, much as I love chocolate, sorry....
I love cheese even more.

One of my favorite cheese eating experiences is Roquefort, one of the worlds best known cheeses, but a cheese produced in a very small part of France under very specific conditions.

Roquefort is a sheep milk cheese which is inoculated with a culture of the penicilum roqueforti mold which was found naturally in the limestone caves of Roquefort-sur-Sourzon. Originally, the mold was cultivated on bread and introduced into the cheese curd, but now the mold is laboratory cultivated and introduced as an aerosol spray. The milk for the cheese is produced all through the departments of the Aveyron, Aude, Lozere, Gard and Tarn, but the cheese must be produced and aged in the caves of Roquefort-sur-Sourzon to earn the official appelation.

There are many blue cheeses produced in France, notably the Forme d'Ambert, Bleu d'Auvergne, Bleu de Causse and a few other locally produced varieties.
Roquefort though is distinctive in its semi dry, crumbly creaminess. The flavor is not
muddled by a strong aroma reminiscent of camembert as the other cheeses are.
The green veins provide a sharp tang. The overall flavor sensation starts mild, waxes sweet, then smoky and fades to a salty finish. It has no rind, the outer layer is soft and edible and salty.

Penicilum mold flavored cheeses are first mentioned in literature as far back as 79 AD by Pliny the Elder. In 1411, King Charles VI granted the rsident so Roquefort-sur-Sourzon a monopoly regarding the ripening the cheeses, which they had already been doing in the caves for centuries.
In 1925, the first Appellation d'Origine Controllee in France was granted to Roquefort.

In folk lore, the cheese was supposedly discovered by a sheperd who had his lunch of bread and ewes milk cheese and left it in the cave forgotten for months when he was distracted by a young shepardess. When he fond it months later, the cheese had turned to Roquefort.

Roquefort is an interesting cheese to try with wine. It goes spectacularly with some reds and inexplicably not with others. If you were having a wine tasting, it would not be a very good cheese to serve because of these very unpredictable results.

Now, Roquefort cheese is being held hostage to the American beef industry. The Bush administration, yesterday, in what is described as a completely inexplicable move has threatened to shut down the Roquefort import market to America by raising the tariffs by 300%.
This will severely affect the small farmers and cheese mnakers who have expanded because of the worlds love for their great cheese. The Aveyron is one of the poorest departments of France and has tradiitonally relied on Sheep farming on the high arid plains of South Western Central France.

Why is America doing this? Because of the ban on American hormone raised beef in Europe. The EU has banned imports of hormone raised beef research showing that a multitude of health issues affected by the hormonal usage in the American Beef Industry.

The mystery is why America arbitrarily chose to retaliate by destroying the livelihood of a small group of farmers. Perhaps it is because the last time they tried to do this, in the mid 90's, the farmers of the Aveyron united with the dairy industry of America after their leader, Jose Bove demonstrated against the American power play by dismantling McDonalds. Dismantling is a very polite word for destroying.

Mr. Bove went to prison, but emerged as the most charismatic opponent of American multinational agribusiness. He has led the fight against the spread of OGM corn and other seeds and has been successful in haveing OGM material banned in many areas of France and has kept the issue at the forefront of European politics.
Buy Roquefort cheese. This unjust punishment and retalitory measure will not stand.