With all the hubbub back in the States about the FDA clamping down on Raw Milk Cheese, I thought I would throw caution to the wind & sample as much cheese as possible in a country that has its priorities set straight. The French know & love cheese. From the broad range the offer for sale, to the shear number of vendors–three at the Wednesday market at Lavardac alone! You couldn’t find or support the sale of so much cheese in a month of Sundays, even in the biggest city in the US. The tastes and smells of these market stalls is amazing! The shear volume & variety of cheese is intense. As someone who makes the occasional cheese, the talent, range of flavors and milks presented here–at one small mid-week market–is humbling. I took these photos to help remember some of what the fromagiers (cheesemongers) told us as we tasted some of what their cases had to offer.

We, in the States, are at a crossroads in the Artisanal food movement. Caught between diverse & unbending regulations and regulatory authorities who don’t always understand or care to understand their mission, and eager producers who are often willing to step out on any limb to practice their art and share their product, experience, pride and enthusiasm with a hungry public. Somewhere there is a happy medium. This isn’t a choice between one extreme and another. Surely we haven’t met a fork in the road where we must choose between No Raw Milk Cheeses or a Black Market of the good, bad and ugly. Why does the FDA feel it must re-invent the wheel? Why do American Farmstead cheese producers insist there are but few ways forward? Even under withering EU farm policy & regulations, quality food, cheese & Artisanal meat is produced in small scale operations in France and the rest of Europe. Can we not learn by example and find a way to make this work in the US as well? To have our Raw Milk cheeses and eat them too?

While you ponder this, please enjoy some cheese:

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