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Industrialization of AOC Camembert - Passing Fad or Harbinger of Things to Come?

camembert-normandie.jpg
The Associated Press is running a story about a French Camembert producer that wants to switch from using raw milk to using micro-filtered milk. Isigny-Sainte-Mere, one of France's largest producers of AOC Camembert, is asking the National Institute for Origin and Quality to change the rules that govern the cheese.

Isigny-Sainte-Mere is likely reacting to a 2005 E. coli incident involving Reaux's raw-milk Camembert. They want to use micro-filtered milk in their cheese, but still maintain their AOC status, so they are petitioning for a change in the rules. Micro-filtration is similar to pasteurization in that it removes much of the bacteria present in raw milk. While this can help to create a safer product, it also destroys much of the character and flavor of the cheese.

It seems that while traditional foodways are making a return in the United States, the same ones are beginning to disappear in Europe, the very place of their origin. Perhaps in a few decades time, the French and Italians will be coming to America to learn how to make real cheese again!

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You are right!

You are right!
I also don't want to have a micro-filtered milk in this cheese.

Something about micro-filtered milk

I think that micro-filtered milk for cheese is this civilization perversion. I really like Camembert and I don't want have a micro-filtered milk in this cheese.

If someone doesnэt know цhat is micro-filtered milk?

It’s a new preservation technique consisting of purifying the milk. First the cream is separated from the milk, then pasteurized. For its part, the milk is filtered through extremely fine membranes separating the bacteria. The cream and milk are then mixed again in chosen proportions. Not yet widely available on the French market, this milk does not yet hold an official designation. It can be kept in cold conditions longer than pasteurized milk, and even if its taste has been partly preserved because it has not been heated, its physico-chemical structure has been altered.

Alex Nakitta