Caseophile

Non-dairy ice cream?

Well, looking at its legal definition, this seems to mean "ice (with no cream)".

So where do we go from here? Many good people have a dog, and since dogs like "ice cream" and their owners are fond of sharing such soft melting delights with their four-legged friends – a habit that's bad for those intolerant of lactose... here's THE solution: Nestlé have just (re)launched in the USA (not surprising?) an "ice cream" without milk, in vanilla and cocoa butter flavours...

Elsewhere, you'll have to make do with a soya ice ... or a sorbet (milk-free!)

Enjoy!!

Mother’s milk for animals?!

Yes, it happens.

Though we all know that a goat can be used as a wet nurse for a baby, the converse sounds rather shocking. And yet the scientific truth is that a mother's milk is suitable for many baby animals. It's just that the idea is repulsive to most of us...

So I urge you to look at the article by Maggy Bieulac Scott of the OCHA (French Observatory of Food Habits) which in particular talks about Indian women, the Bishnoïs, who give their milk to fawns and young orphan gazelles. It's in French – but if you cannot understand the language well, just go into the website for the charming picture.

Amazing what you can learn!

Flying cows?!

Yes I have just seen some – and I haven’t been at the Mirabelle liqueur!   And not just a (Dutch, that may explain...) cow up in the air but I’ve also seen a dinosaur. Here are the pictures:    

1) The cow    

2) The dinosaur – can you believe your eyes?   It's also a balloon !  It’s all because I had the pleasure to go up in a hot-air balloon at the recent Mondial Air Ballon de Chambley show here in Lorraine … very early on a Friday morning.   Anyway I can guarantee it’s an extraordinary experience to fly above the countryside, making precious little noise … to attract the curiosity of cattle, to come down on dry land and glide up again.   Well I must admit that for a real flying cow, it’s best to go to Switzerland. On the www.lyoba.ch site you find this photo – and others, just look at this one. In particular I love this shot of the Tilsiter cheese balloon from Switzerland made up from a red and a green cow (they even have a collection of screen savers on offer!) 

Ersatz cheese…

More amazing news is to be found in the heat of summer… the blogagroalimentaire of my friend Liliane has drawn my attention to this one: some agricultural food producers are finding cheese just too expensive and are replacing it by “analogous cheese”. Of course not one drop of milk is used to make it. In short, it’s a mixture of vegetable fats, powdered proteins as well as artificial flavourings…

On March 31 last, a German parliamentarian, Christa Klass, made the following declaration to the European Commission:

European consumers need to be informed objectively about food products in order to be able to decide for themselves what they buy and eat. Cheese is supposed to mean the consumption of milk and good health. But at the present time an artificial cheese is taking over the food market. This analogous cheese is being used more and more in prepared products such as pizza and lasagne. This product is made from palm oil, starch, milk protein, salt and flavourings. The picture on the label suggests nonetheless to the consumer that cheese has been used in it. So while sales of good dairy products are stagnant or even in decline, this sort of competition through substitution is being practiced.

Is the European Commission aware of this cheese substitution product and is it aware of its share of the dairy products market?

Can the Commission quantify the scale of the damage or the loss of cheese or milk market shares?

Does the Commission share the view that the consumer is being misled when advertising suggests that this is “cheese”, when it contains no cheese? If this is so, should not a clear indication that analogous cheese has been used be indicated on it?

 

Reply: (EU translation!)

 The Commission is aware that some products with mixtures of dairy ingredients and some fats or protein from other sources are marketed as "cheese analogue".

The EU legislation restricts the use of the designation "cheese" to products which are manufactured from milk and from milk products and where milk ingredients are not replaced by usually cheaper ingredients from a different origin. If that is the case the product designation can not be "cheese" nor "cheese analogue" as this designation would be an abuse of the protected designation.

The EU legislation is clear where it lays down that products which are not in the list of protected designations for milk products shall not use in the label, commercial documents, publicity material or any form of advertising or any form of presentation, any claims or suggestion that the product is a dairy product.

Member States shall enforce the application of EU legislation and are responsible for the controls.

The Commission has no data on the importance of such products.

Or to put it another way…

 The Commission is aware that there are some products with mixtures of dairy products together with some fats and proteins from other sources which are sold on the market as “analogous cheese”.

UE legislation limits the use of the term “cheese” to products which are made from milk and not where the milk ingredients are replaced by cheaper ingredients of a different origin. In this case, the product description cannot be “cheese” nor “analogous cheese” as these terms would represent a misuse of a protected designation.

UE legislation is clear: products which are not listed as protected milk products may not suggest on their labelling, commercial documentation or publicity material that they are dairy products.

Member states are responsible for putting in place a system to ensure respect for UE Legislation.

But the Commission does not have any statistics about how widespread the problem is!

Big deal! Well let’s keep our eyes skinned on all this. Even if it’s difficult for an ordinary consumer to notice any difference… But a production level of 100,000 tonnes a year just for Germany – that’s twice the cheese production of the Comté region in France.

It’s already caught the attention of the Council of State of the Fribourg canton in Switzerland, where Swiss Gruyère PDO is produced, and questions have been asked in its parliament about the protection of the local cheese industry and the extent to which Swiss consumers may be being misled.

Dirty deeds in Périgueux

A recent French TV programme has put the cat (again) among the pigeons concerning sales of cheese in markets in Périgueux, Sarlat and Brantôme in the Dordogne area – a subject first raised by William Lesourd last December in his Périblog (in French). His basic view was “it’s not because it costs more that it’s necessarily better”.

And indeed asking €50 a kilo for Cantal, even an Entre-Deux, is hard on the purse, especially as the vast majority of people are ashamed to end up refusing the piece they have asked to be cut and depart feeling a little (or a good deal) sick. Although after all, one might say that’s their problem! As long as the price is clearly marked (sometimes this is not the case…) and they allow themselves to be chatted up by the trader, tough luck on them. Well, yes and no.

But how come this is news again six months later? Recent reports on the web, in the local press and on France 3 TV tell us that the Mayor of Périgueux has banned certain traders from the town markets.

But in the background there has been the current milk crisis. You will recall perhaps that not too long ago, milk producers … and producers of vegetables and meats … blocked the roads around the depots of supermarket traders in protest against the slim profit margins they got on their products. And recently in the Agrisalon newsletter, it was revealed that a hefty 44% margin on the sale of a slice of ham went into the pocket of the store owner.

But now it is known that it’s not just the big retail outlets who are making such whopping profits … it happens down as far as the street markets of Périgueux.

However, it’s not my aim to hit out at market sellers, far from it! The vast majority are excellent and irreproachable professionals who have nothing to be ashamed about, and their margins just serve to cover their site rental, the (very high) costs of their refrigerated transport, petrol, personnel etc. etc. On this very market in Périgueux, you can find every Saturday morning, Michelle Thieullent, for instance, who takes a stall instead of being in her shop – “La Ferme Périgourdine” in rue Limogeanne … and yet her cheeses and her prices are just right!

So I’m only drawing attention to certain questionable trade practices which I have witnessed in Nancy as well as other markets in the North of France, as a friend has told me.

So as consumers, you should all keep your eyes open and not be seduced by salesman who are charging caviar prices (almost) for their cheese … unless it contains truffles, of course ;-)

“Never let the truth get in the way of a good story!...”

Something else to make you laugh … the wrong side of your face… is this story published on the internet by a French newspaper (normally) of good repute – Libération.

Written on 8^th June by Jacky Durand concerning a book entitled Vive la Malbouffe! Published by Hoëlbeke, its subject is junk food.

I've not read the book but according to the journalist of Libération re cheese:

"Following a decree established in April 2007, farmhouse cheeses no longer need to be made on the farm from A through to Z. Any old manufacturer can do a tour of producers and buy up cheese in its "white" form (curdled, strained and moulded), mature it in his own factory and then stick a label saying farmhouse on it and a corresponding price tag (up to 20% higher in a specialist shop)".

Come on! Let's be serious!! What ignorance of established cheese making practice this all is! I would say it's precisely the opposite which takes place and that more and more farmhouse producers are also starting to mature their products.

This is because there exists in certain marketing practices, two quite separate professions, recognised as such:

• cheese makers (farmhouse and dairy)
• maturers

  This has been the case for centuries in St Nectaire, in Cantal and Salers, in Brie cheeses from Meaux and Melun, in Comté, in Reblochon … etc.

A cheese producer (farmhouse as it happens) did not always have enough room to stock his cheeses as they matured or quite simply was running short of cash, so he sold on his cheeses when they were still "white", just after salting (and not after moulding as this book pretends) or else did not necessarily know how to go about maturing them correctly.

These days I know quite a few producers (farmhouse or regular) who have understood that they get a better return from their production by maturing them themselves. But that has meant for them significant investment in cellars and a considerable short term loss in cash flow (but could they really afford it?) … and hours spent learning this new activity. But those who have done so whom I have met have never regretted it!

Anyway, the decree of 27 April 2007 has not changed anything… so let's just stop attacking a respectable profession with all its ancestral know-how: those fine people who mature farmhouse and other dairy products!

An invasion of cows!

I have been recently surprised to read that cows, like flies, are an invasive species!

But it's only been reported from the Amsterdam Island in the West Indies where at one time 6 cows (and, one must assume, one bull … for some credit must be paid to the "facts of life") were introduced at the beginning of the last century and left to their own devices. Now there are 300 and they are shamelessly destroying the nests of the poor albatrosses. They need to put up a notice: Beware of the cow!

The Alpine Meadows are green once more…

With winter behind them and the snow gone for another season, the (Swiss) Neuchâtel Chamber for Agriculture and Viticulture (CNAV) has issued a few warnings to ramblers in the Alpine meadows – and it wasn't on April 1^st!

It was not to point out that the cows recently transferred to alpine meadows can be dangerous but rather to talk about the behaviour of dogs. Not that they can frighten the cows (although that too often happens, alas). But that their excrement can cause cows to abort… Perhaps you've never asked yourself as your four-legged friend races around those fields, if you ought not to collect its droppings and take them away.

Yes, you do need to do this in the Alpine slopes, just as you would in a town, as cows can ingest pathogenic bacteria in this way and become ill. And those which are "carrying" run serious risks of aborting.

Plastic and aluminium waste left there can also be very dangerous for the animal, which may swallow them and risk an internal haemorrhage which can be fatal. So do take all your rubbish back down with you. Alpine meadows are not vast playgrounds.

And while I'm letting off about this selfish behaviour, I can't help but also mention the floor of chairlifts strewn with fag ends, paper tissue wrappers, and other sweet papers tossed away by thoughtless skiers!! I watched two wild sheep chomping through this sort of rubbish last month. Disgraceful!