BATTLE lines have been drawn between farmers and big business, in defence of the traditions behind Camembert cheese.
Patrick Mercier, who raises his cows on a 120ha farm in Normandy on a diet of nothing but grass to produce genuine Camembert, believes that France's most famous cheese is under threat from industrialists, The Australian reports.
He says that they make Camembert with milk from cows fed on cattle-feed and from as far afield as the Netherlands.
He is leading local farmers and cheese-makers into a legal battle to prevent food giants from suggesting that their Camembert is an authentic Normandy cheese when it has only been processed there.
The case may revolve around abstruse legal argument, but traditionalists say the result will help to determine the preservation of the French lifestyle.
The stakes are high: only nine genuine Camembert producers are still in business and they supply just 5 per cent of the 85,000 or so tonnes of the cheese made every year.
Purists believe they could disappear altogether without a court ruling to halt a tide of agricultural industrialisation that Mr Mercier blames on Europe's Common Agricultural Policy.
"Real Camembert is a lot more creamy than the industrial version," Mr Mercier said. "It also has a deeper colour because of the grass."
For a true "Camembert de Normandie" cows have to graze in the fields of Normandy for at least six months a year, their milk must be unpasteurised, there must be at least five ladles of curds in each mould and a pause of 40 minutes between each turn of the ladle.
The cheese cannot be put into its box until the 13th day after it is pressed and it must remain at the production site until the 17th day after pressing.
A Camembert "fabrique en Normandie" (made in Normandy) may sound similar but the label indicates a cheese assembled in Normandy after the sort of manufacturing process that is used by the car industry.
"There is an enormous difference in taste between the two," said Mr Mercier.
"You eat one for nutrition and the other for pleasure."
Privately, Mr Mercier hopes that the case will never come to court, but that the threat of legal action will prompt food industry giants to start making real Camembert.
"It all used to be made that way in the 1960s," he said. "We need to reverse the trend."
Read more at The Australian.
