Cheesemakers Attempt to Police Themselves
Some interesting raw-milk cheese news from the San Francisco Chronicle:
Hoping to head off regulation that might make their products illegal, several prominent American dairies, including Redwood Hill Farm in Sebastopol, have formed the Raw Milk Cheesemakers Association.
The association aims to ensure the safety of domestic cheeses made from unpasteurized milk by helping members implement safe manufacturing practices.
For consumers with a taste for these cheeses—among them Redwood Hill's goat feta and Jasper Hill Farm's Constant Bliss—the new group may help keep their favorites available. And for raw-milk cheesemakers eager to make the safest product possible, the RCMA could provide expertise.
Is this necessary?
The answer is probably yes, because the federales are so mired in red tape and bureaucracy that they never bothered to learrn that no one ever died from eating Parmigiano Reggiano, a raw milk cheese.
"It's about us making sure we have our act together," says Cary Bryant of Oregon's Rogue Creamery, which makes the acclaimed Rogue River Blue, along with several other blue cheeses from raw milk. "If anything (bad) happens, the whole industry goes down."
Many of the world's great cheeses are made with unpasteurized raw milk. I wish it wasn't necessary for raw milk cheesemakers to defend themselves against baseless charges. Somebody should follow their lead and do something similar for salumi-makers, who are needless tortured by inspectors as well.
Photograph from Jasper Hill Farm
Add a comment:
Previewing your comment:
HTML Hints
Some HTML is OK: <a href="URL">link</a>, <strong>strong</strong>, <em>em</em>
Comment Guidelines
Post whatever you want, just keep it seriously about eats, seriously. We reserve the right to delete off-topic or inflammatory comments. Learn more at our Comment Policy page.
If you see something not so nice, please, report an inappropriate comment.
1 Comment:
Whatever can protect Redwood Hills is jake with me. They make such a great goat-milk yoghurt (great for people like me who are trying to cut down on dairy without cutting down on dairy, if you get my drift)!
klg19 at 12:21PM on 09/27/07