The slow death of French cheese

[liuzhou]

The slow death of French cheese

 

Read and weep!

[rotuts]

very sad article.

 

this all started w The Laughing Cow.

 

made of Rubber and tin-foil wrapped in individual

 

trance's.  

 

did you ever wonder why the cow was laughing ?

 

it was laughing at You !

 

 

sad.

Edited February 17, 2020 by rotuts (log)

[Margaret Pilgrim]

Indeed upsetting to read of small specialty producers' being marginalized.    But the French themselves are consumers of your foil wrapped bonbons.    We've encountered Laughing Cow Apericubes at many French drinks occasions, little cubes of highly flavored processed cheese.    Whether these are truly appreciated for what they are or just a convenient if ironic snack, I don't know.     Flavors like ham, sun dried tomato, pesto, blue cheese...

 

[suzilightning]

interesting this should come up.  I am currently reading A Bite-sized History of France: gastronomic tales of revolution, war, and enlightment by Stephane H'enaut and his wife Jeni Mitchell.  Piece #46 A Mutiny and a Laughing Cow is a history of how the symbol came about.  To try and summarize a young cheesemaker named L'eon Bel was serving in the quatermasters corps,in the trenches.finding and delivering fresh meat to the troops.  They were called RVF - Ravitaillement en Viande Fraiche and each unit had a mascot to encourage morale.  Bel's unit chose a laughing cow which had the inscription LA WACHKYRIE which sounds phoenetically like la vache qui rit but also invokes the Valkyrie from Wagner's opera, basically mocking the Germans.  After the war Bel went back to his family's cheese business ,learned  that the Swiss had invented a new kind of processed cheese that could be kept for extended periods of time.  He developed his own and when he was ready in 1921 to market it he named it after that mascot.