Why you can't buy French cheese in Norway (a case study in pro-EU ignorance)

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Some readers will recall the Great Norwegian Butter Crisis:

With the sense of national crisis deepening, the national daily Aftenposten ran a two-page spread with instructions on how to make your own butter. It's all a big disappointment for the domestic goddesses of the north for whom butter is a standard Christmas staple.

"I need butter today to make my lussekatt buns and my Christmas biscuits," grumbled one elderly Norwegian. "I brought up my four children under German occupation but this is nothing like that."

And the readers who got beyond having a great old laugh at the Norwegians will have learned that the reason for the butter crisis is Norway's deranged (this is genuinely the only way to describe them) agricultural protection policies:

"The problem is more to do with a lack of competition in the market," he said. "Tine is a monopolist in the market as a result of outdated postwar regulatory regimes in a concentrated market with high entry barriers."

Put simply Norway requires its milk producers to sell to one producer of dairy products and then slaps a complicated bunch of quotas, limited, controls and regulations of the industry. All this before lumping on a huge tariff on imports.

Hence the abject ignorance and stupidity of this remark (from the Director of Britain Stronger In Europe):




For, had Will Straw known about the Great Norwegian Butter Crisis, he would have been a little slower in suggesting that the lack of Camembert in Oslo was down to the French not wanting to sell the stuff to Norwegians:

Cheese imports from the EU that were hit by the tariff, including Gouda and cheddar, became almost three times more expensive when the tariffs took effect January 1, driving many brands out of the Norwegian market. EU politicians claim the punitive tariffs have damaged trade and not least Norwegian consumers, and kept European cheeses out of the Norwegian market at a time when Europe needs all the trade it can get because of its economic crisis.

So there you have it - the problem was caused by the decisions of idiot politicians in Norway rather than idiot politicians in Brussels. And, if Will Straw wants to make the case for staying in the EU, then he really ought to get his facts straight.

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Friday fungus: No blue cheese isn't going away...

Penicillium roqueforti - the fungus that makes blue cheese blue

This afternoon Kathryn tripped into the dining room where I was lounging with a book (or rather in these hi-tech times, a kindle) to tell me about the great ploughman's lunch her and Jethro had enjoyed at The George. And more specifically to wave a piece of Yorkshire Blue cheese in my direction - this was because the rest of my family don't like this particular example of the gift that fungi bring to our cuisine.

However, the Co-op has issued a press release saying that Stilton (and I guess other blue cheeses) are 'under threat' because:

Consumption by those under 30 years of age has slumped by 23 per cent and few people under the age of 25 would consider buying it regularly. But cheese experts are warning that if the trend continues it could mean that Blue Stilton, which has been in production in the UK for almost 300 years, would only be available overseas. 

Now I applaud the cuteness of this PR campaign - for that's precisely what this is about.  And if it means that there's more talk of the blue cheese that is brilliant. Apparently the poor kids have been told not to eat mouldy food - so they don't eat Stilton!

The mold in Stilton is Penicillium roqueforti - probably the only fungus with a facebook page - and it's been around a long time (the French folk put bread in caves to catch it before adding it to the cheese). Penicillium roqueforti is a common saprotrophic fungus from the family Trichocomaceae. Widespread in nature, it can be isolated from soil, decaying organic matter, and plants - and we've been using it since at least 500AD and possibly longer.

There will always be folk who don't like the powerful flavours of blue cheeses, just as there are plenty of people who'd rather have a bland processed cheese. But I don't believe for a second that we won't be able to buy Stilton and other blue cheeses in England.

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Cheese smuggling or Why criminals like protectionism

A few of you, on hearing this story, will have grinned a little. Maybe even guffawed. After all cheese smuggling is funny, no?

Canadian authorities say two police constables helped smuggle more than $200,000 worth of cheaper U.S. cheeses and other foods across the border from Buffalo to sell to pizzerias and restaurants.

The Niagara Regional Police Service announced today that the pair, one of whom has been fired, were arrested and charged, along with a third man. Charges against the three, all from Fort Erie, Ontario, include smuggling and other customs violations.

The point, however, is that with a very long and pretty open border, the Canadians are daft to impose huge tariffs on imported dairy produce as well as a range of permits, licences and rules (not just on imports but on selling dairy in a different province). All to "protect" the dairy industry (at the expense of the consumer).

And, as this story shoes us, the big winners aren't the cowherds and milkmaids of Canada but a bunch of criminals (helped in this case by a pair of corrupt cops). Protectionism sounds good when politicians promise it to one or other special interest or in a sort of populist, "keep out the foreigners" campaign but when it's introduced it acts as a tax on consumers to the benefit of smugglers.

And you don't need to protect the dairy industry. Go look at New Zealand and learn.

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Choice

It was never simple was it? They just pretended that bread was bread and cheese was cheese. That slightly chewy off-white stuff - Mother's Pride or whatever - married to a slice of something akin to packaging material but somehow just falling within the trades descriptions act definition of cheese.

And the only way to make it palatable was to toast it and add some sauce - brown, red or, latterly, chilli. The tangy, spicy, vinigary-ness made up for the total blandness of the bread and cheese.

Now there is choice! Wonderful, exciting, confusing and adventurous choice. Black bread made with rye (hopefully without its lunacy-making fungal pal), sweet Jewish white bread studded with poppy seeds and breads with spelt or oats mixed in to make them, well... more spelty or oaty.

And that cheese - once there was cheddar and, if you were posh, red leicester and stilton. Now the table heaves with cheeses of every kind imaginable - soft cheeses made to spread on the bread, crumbly ones that make your mouth water with anticipation and fabulous blue cheeses, that perfect entwining of fungus and milk.

So we choose - sometimes we go with what we've tried before. But now and then we take a punt, we try something different - listening to the man at the counter we dip our toe into explosive welsh cheddar and the bread lady persuades to to try some bread made from a Croatian recipe. And we combine them, perhaps with a pickle or other condiment from an equally bewildering array, another fantastic choice.

And they try to tell us choice is bad? That we don't really want choice? And that someone else knows better what is good for us!

Right now, in education, health and social care most people are getting that barely digestible bread and that chewy cheese.  And others - who can buy their way out from that absence of choice - tell us this is the right way, the only way. And that choice is a bad thing.

They are wrong. Bread and cheese tells us they are wrong. Bring on the choice.

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Denormalising butter...

There is sits in your fridge. A glistening slab of evil intent. Saturated fats. Sinful fats. Waiting just to do its wicked job, the raise your cholesterol levels, to fur up your arteries and to drag you inexorably towards that devastating coronary heart attack or that debilitating stroke.

And there are children’s poems featuring this dread substance, this cause of obesity. Can this be allowed?

The King asked
The Queen, and
The Queen asked
The Dairymaid:
"Could we have some butter for
The Royal slice of bread?"

It’s mad, I know. Mad and stupid. But the ‘denormalisation’ of foods mankind has eaten since before we invented writing continues apace. And butter has moved – with the decision of the Danish government to slap on a ‘fat tax’ – to the head of the denormalisation queue:

Mr Cameron told the Conservative conference that a similar move should not be ruled out in the UK.

“I think it is something that we should look at,” he said in an interview with Five Live. “The problem in the past when people have looked at using the tax system in this way is the impact it can have on people on low incomes. But frankly, do we have a problem with the growing level of obesity? Yes.

“I am worried about the costs to the health service, the fact that some people are going to have shorter lives than their parents.”

Understand that this proposal isn’t a tax on those foods Guardian readers disapprove of, those greasy burgers beloved of the lower orders. It’s at tax on cheese, on butter on Aberdeen Angus beef steaks – on some of Britain’s finest artisan foods. And the purpose – well that is clear. The intention is to gradually eliminate saturated fats from most people’s diets – the aim is the denormalisation of butter.

I could at this point argue that this whole effort is misplaced – saturated fats simply aren’t the primary cause of obesity:

Processed carbohydrates, which many Americans eat today in place of fat, may increase the risk of obesity, diabetes and heart disease more than fat does—a finding that has serious implications for new dietary guidelines expected this year.

It’s filling up on cheap pizza, ramming down vast bowls of “healthy” pasta and foot long subs that are the problem rather than the butter and the cheese.  But this isn’t the main point.

I could also remark that rates of obesity – especially among men – are no longer rising:

Despite the government ignoring the anti-obesity lobby's urgent suggestions for traffic light labelling on food and suchlike, the latest figures show that obesity amongst men has fallen to 22% and the female obesity rate has fallen to 24%.

So we’re stepping up a campaign in a battle we’re already winning. But again, that isn’t the point.

The point is that the tax would seal an abominable relationship between the nannying fussbuckets in our health system and the rapacious maw of the treasury. The men with calculators will see billions in revenue from ratcheting up the ‘fat tax’ by above inflation each year egged on by the Church of Public Health who will – without the need for any evidential support – propagandise that such actions are making us healthier and happier.

If some people wish for a dull, flavourless existence then they can give up butter, cheese and beef dripping. But there is no place for these to be ‘denormalised’ by those who cannot see that obesity is self-inflicted, brought on by cramming our faces with stodge and sugar while our only exercise is to stretch out a hand to grasp the TV remote control. It really is that simple – so why tax my little pleasures because somebody else has got too fat by eating too much?

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Remembering asparagus!

Since the asparagus season is over (for those who don't know, it runs from the Grand National to the Derby) I thought I would write about asparagus - sparrow's grass. Despite it making your wee smell funny, it is one of the most flavoursome vegetables and versatile - as a starter, accompanying a main course or, combined with other stuff, a great main course in its own right.

First the boring bit before I describe the recipe that's pictured above:

Asparagus is a herbaceous, perennial plant growing to 100–150 centimetres (39–59 in) tall, with stout stems with much-branched feathery foliage. The "leaves" are in fact needle-like cladodes (modified stems) in the axils of scale leaves; they are 6–32 millimetres (0.24–1.3 in) long and 1 millimetre (0.039 in) broad, and clustered 4–15 together. The root system is adventitious and the root type is fasciculated. The flowers are bell-shaped, greenish-white to yellowish, 4.5–6.5 millimetres (0.18–0.26 in) long, with six tepals partially fused together at the base; they are produced singly or in clusters of 2–3 in the junctions of the branchlets. It is usually dioecious, with male and female flowers on separate plants, but sometimes hermaphrodite flowers are found. The fruit is a small red berry 6–10 mm diameter, which is poisonous to humans.

Got all that? The plant also has supposed medicinal qualities although I'm pretty (by which I mean 100%) sure that it doesn’t cure cancer.

So, that recipe – roast asparagus salad with poached egg – which comes from Steve Parle (or rather the roast asparagus bit does):

1 large bunch of asparagus
8 sweet cherry tomatoes
2 tbsp of small firm black olives, stones removed
1 scant tsp of capers
6 sprigs of thyme
1 clove of garlic, cut into 4
3½oz/100g lamb’s lettuce, washed and dried
1 scant tsp white wine, cider or sherry vinegar
1 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper
2oz/50g aged pecorino or other hard, picante cheese

Preheat the oven to 200C/gas mark 6. Snap the tough stems from the asparagus and place in a roasting tray with the tomatoes, olives, capers, thyme and garlic. Glug over a little olive oil and roast for five to 10 minutes until the asparagus is soft and the tomatoes have burst.

Remove the tray from the oven and add the vinegar and a little more olive oil. Break the tomatoes up a little into the oil and vinegar to make a sort of dressing.

Lay the lettuce on a serving plate and place the asparagus on top.

Pour over the juices from the roasting tin then shave over some cheese.

My version has two variations – the addition of a poached egg perched atop the roasted sparrow’s grass and a particular cheese:

Pecorino Tartufo is an old style of Umbrian pressed sheep milk cheese. The cheese's buttery nutty flavour is enhanced with the addition of aromatic black truffles giving it a unique signature.

Well there had to be some mushrooms involved somewhere!

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These sheep are forgiven for waking me up every morning for the past week!

These sheep are guilty of waking me up every other morning for the past ten days - half of them have bells round their necks and the clunking and baa-ing at five in the morning wasn't all that cheering. But I've forgiven the sheep as their milk contributed to the cheese from these people - Pinzani. Some of the very best pecorino and ricotta you'll ever taste including one infused with white truffle that I'll speak of later.

The older pecorino is almost as hard as a Parmesan and can be used as a substitute whereas the younger ones make great cheese on toast, are fantastic as a starter with olives or can be used in cooking as an alternative to cheeses like Emmenthal, Gouda or Edam. And the ricotta? Make a cheesecake. Or better still a cheese & truffle souffle!

Friday Fungus: mushroom ketchup - a serving suggestion!

Breakfast - toasted onion bread, polish pickle, farmhouse single gloucester cheese and - concluding this weeks Friday Fungus (a day late) - homemade mushroom ketchup!