FDA Cheese Ban: Mite vs. Right

November 6, 2013 8:03 PM

Despite the cries of "Save the Mimolette!", the FDA has decided to ban the sale of the French cheese Mimolette over mites used in the rind.

This well-aged cow's milk cheese has never sickened anyone, to my knowledge. The French have been enjoying Mimolette for four centuries, so if it were harmful, they might know by now.

But early this year, the Food and Drug Administration began holding shipments of Mimolette because of tiny mites on the rind. They deemed the mites an allergen and health hazard and demanded that importers destroy the wheels.

posted by Room 641-A (50 comments total)

Mimolette is a beautiful cheese with no flavor to back it up. I would gladly eat anything else in the cheese case. This is no big loss.
posted by komara at 8:05 PM on November 6, 2013 [1 favorite]

FDA's Mr Cream Genes Finds Fly, Does Muenster Mash
posted by zippy at 8:05 PM on November 6, 2013 [6 favorites]

Ok, Thursday Next, we need you!
posted by chapps at 8:06 PM on November 6, 2013 [5 favorites]

It'll be a bleu Christmas
posted by zippy at 8:07 PM on November 6, 2013 [2 favorites]

As a former cheesemonger, this really curdles my blood.
posted by Room 641-A at 8:08 PM on November 6, 2013 [5 favorites]

Next on Doctored Fermento, Fifty wheys to leave your larva.
posted by zippy at 8:09 PM on November 6, 2013 [26 favorites]

As the French would say, Americans like to buy their cheese already dead, in a body bag.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 8:10 PM on November 6, 2013 [8 favorites]

Ugh. I want to post something snarky about guns being legal, but I'm just sad.
posted by lumpenprole at 8:16 PM on November 6, 2013 [2 favorites]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cheese_mite.jpg

and now I'm supposed to sleep tonight. Awesome.
posted by allthinky at 8:19 PM on November 6, 2013 [1 favorite]

Did you know refined uranium tastes sweet? It's like the powdered lead they used to mask "off" port wine with. A traditional technique to improve flavor complexity and color, denied modern chefs because the GOVERNMENT (always bad) wants to REGULATE (always bad) your food, with no concern for the traditions involved.

Write your congressmen! DEMAND refined uranium in your wine!
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:21 PM on November 6, 2013 [6 favorites]

They will do this and yet they will not ask that companies label clearly for cross-contamination for any of the top 8 known most common food allergens, or do anything to regulate the haphazard voluntary cross-contamination labeling that some companies use completely inconsistently.
posted by BlueJae at 8:22 PM on November 6, 2013 [8 favorites]

"Like other importers, Tomales Bay had to destroy a shipment. Although the FDA has not officially banned the cheese, importers can't risk losing so much product and have stopped shipping the aged cheese."

So it's not actually banned, they just can't get the mite count down low enough to meet FDA standards. The headline is a mite misleading.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 8:24 PM on November 6, 2013 [5 favorites]

Swiss team of cheese experts claim cheese mites found in body of Yasser Arafat.

French cheese maker union assured having nothing to do with this and declared the evidence "circumstantial, at best".
posted by Riton at 8:27 PM on November 6, 2013 [2 favorites]

You just know that Big Cheese is behind this.
posted by Room 641-A at 8:32 PM on November 6, 2013 [4 favorites]

Mimolette sickened me once. Not through mites but through being super gross tasting.
posted by threeants at 8:36 PM on November 6, 2013

Wait, maybe I am thinking of a different cheese. What's that horrible French cheese that's light brown and looks like it would be kind of mild and caramely like Brunost, but actually just tastes like ass?
posted by threeants at 8:38 PM on November 6, 2013

Bah. Put a label on it and move on. Even restricting it by "level" of mites seems provincial. We don't ban imports of products with "too much" peanut in them despite peanuts being a much, much more common allergen.
posted by R343L at 8:47 PM on November 6, 2013 [1 favorite]

By burrowing into the rind, the mites aerate the cheese and allow it to breathe and mature. Sounds disgusting, but you don't eat the rind.

/looks up sheepishly with huge hunk of rind hanging out of wine-stained mouth
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 8:54 PM on November 6, 2013 [16 favorites]

Mimolette is the one that looks almost exactly like a canteloupe, threeants. I like it. It is mild but sometimes that is what you want. Plus it just looks cool.
posted by litlnemo at 8:55 PM on November 6, 2013 [1 favorite]

I'll tell you one thing cutting into into a whole Mimolette: If you finish the job with the same numbers and fingers you started with, you did well.
posted by Room 641-A at 9:02 PM on November 6, 2013 [3 favorites]

The problem with eating mites and cheese is you run out of mites and all you've got left is the cheese.
posted by Pudhoho at 9:06 PM on November 6, 2013 [7 favorites]

"These mites are ruining our cheese!" "No, this cheese is ruining our mites!" (Del Amitri's "Roll to Me" plays)
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 9:11 PM on November 6, 2013

Mousebender: It's not much of a cheese shop really, is it?
Wensleydale: Finest in the district, sir.
Mousebender: And what leads you to that conclusion?
Wensleydale: Well, it's so clean.
Mousebender: Well, it's certainly uncontaminated by cheese.
posted by charlie don't surf at 9:40 PM on November 6, 2013 [6 favorites]

If you finish the job with the same numbers and fingers you started with, you did well.

Is this a case of winding up with fewer, or more?
posted by zippy at 9:58 PM on November 6, 2013 [1 favorite]

Mimolette, even a three year old one is very mild, very tasty like caramel apples. Based on nose alone you'd think the FDA would go after Vacherin first.
posted by Purposeful Grimace at 10:05 PM on November 6, 2013

So naturalists observe, a cheese
Hath cheesemites that upon it prey
But this has bureaucrats to fight it
And so the cheese has been indicted.
posted by Joe in Australia at 10:16 PM on November 6, 2013 [4 favorites]

The FDA is really tone-deaf about these things.
posted by polymodus at 10:44 PM on November 6, 2013

I have a tangentially-related question, since we're talking about imported cheese anyway: I've heard people decry the fact that you can't get TRUE, non-pasteurized Camembert in the U.S.; but I've seen it (I assume pasteurized) in the grocery store. Since I've never been to France and so have no basis for comparison, has anyone tried both and can tell me how much difference pasteurizing actually makes to the flavor of this or any other cheese? Is it obvious or subtle?
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:32 PM on November 6, 2013

Huh. I have some mimolette in the fridge, and I wouldn't say it's that mild. Reminds me of aged gouda.
posted by tavella at 11:48 PM on November 6, 2013

Greg_Ace, a real Camembert has a strong scent and a wonderful, complex flavor. It's stinky when cold but mellows at room temperature and it's runny and wonderful.

American pasteurized Camembert tastes identical to American Brie, which is to say like rubbery butter with a hint of nuttiness.

There's not much similarity between the French version and the American version, in other words.
posted by smeger at 12:25 AM on November 7, 2013 [5 favorites]

They will do this and yet they will not ask that companies label clearly for cross-contamination for any of the top 8 known most common food allergens, or do anything to regulate the haphazard voluntary cross-contamination labeling that some companies use completely inconsistently.

France isn't paying their US Congress BriberyLobby Tax.
US manufacturers by contrast, are paying their bribes taxes, and so they didn't get audited.
posted by anonymisc at 12:29 AM on November 7, 2013

What's that horrible French cheese that's light brown and looks like it would be kind of mild and caramely like Brunost, but actually just tastes like ass?

LOL. Have fun.

Since I've never been to France and so have no basis for comparison, has anyone tried both and can tell me how much difference pasteurizing actually makes to the flavor of this or any other cheese? Is it obvious or subtle?

It is obviously subtle, if that makes sense. smeger describes it well. I love unpasteurized Camembert, but would rather eat brie if offered the pasteurized stuff.

Mimolette, meh. Long live stinky reblochon, goat cheeses, and bleus that bite. Probably can't get those in the US either, though :( At least there's still Tillamook. (Sometimes people wonder why I fit in so well in France, and I'm like, dudettes and dudes, I come from the Willamette Valley. Wine and cheese since childhood.)
posted by fraula at 1:35 AM on November 7, 2013 [2 favorites]

Mity cheese.
posted by misteraitch at 1:41 AM on November 7, 2013

I can only assume you people saying mimolette is bland have only ever eaten young unripe one. Like pretty much all cheeses and humans, the only common point between young and old versions is that they have the same name. Extra-old mimolette is like a fine toffee that is magically not cloying. Long live extra-old mimolette.
posted by Spanner Nic at 2:21 AM on November 7, 2013 [4 favorites]

Send them to me and I'll destroy them.

Also, I've been quite obsessively doing cryptic crosswords lately and all I can see now is 'mites' in "save the mimolette."

I feel like all of this is some cruel joke on my US-dwelling friends. (It kind of already was, considering how much you have to pay for it there.)
posted by iamkimiam at 4:37 AM on November 7, 2013

JJ Walker would have been a great spokesman for the ad campaign: "Dine-on-mites!"
posted by dr_dank at 4:46 AM on November 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

Mimolette? Fine- but they can have my Sardinian casu marzu when the pry it from my cold, wriggling hands!
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 4:47 AM on November 7, 2013

Steady on, they'll be coming for the casu marzu next.

(I was also all set to link the Lenny Henry "Chef" stilton episode here but can't find a clip online.)

eta: aaaaaaaaaaand beaten to the punch by TWS!
posted by hearthpig at 4:48 AM on November 7, 2013

Noooooooooooooooooooooo!
posted by Theta States at 6:01 AM on November 7, 2013

Pasteurized Camembert as bought in the US is an okay soft cheese but not really much different from the similarly okay Brie sold here. During my few months in France, though, sometimes I'd live on supermarket Camembert and toasts. We do some really good aged cheeses in the US, but the aging/pasteurization requirements means most good young cheeses are basically illegal.
posted by Karmakaze at 6:25 AM on November 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

Surely this is something we can get the Libertarian lobby interested in.
posted by arcticseal at 6:37 AM on November 7, 2013

According to folklore, Casu Marzu is even an aphrodisiac.

That's just marketing for disgusting foods.
posted by Ham Snadwich at 6:38 AM on November 7, 2013

arcticseal: "Surely this is something we can get the Libertarian lobby interested in."

They're on it.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:47 AM on November 7, 2013

Pasteurized Camembert as bought in the US is an okay soft cheese but not really much different from the similarly okay Brie sold here. During my few months in France, though, sometimes I'd live on supermarket Camembert and toasts. We do some really good aged cheeses in the US, but the aging/pasteurization requirements means most good young cheeses are basically illegal.

1) Most Brie and Camembert eaten in France are made with Pasturized Milk. Something like 96% of "camembert" sold is not AOC Lait Cru Camembert de Normandie. Most Brie is actually stabilized so it can't mature. Only AOC Brie de Meaux/Melun/Nangis is real cheese, and again a small % of consumption even in france.
2) Fundamentally for industrial cheeses Brie and Camembert are made using the exact same processes and innoculated with the exact same micro-organisms. The only difference being the size of the wheel. Now don't get me wrong - this matters - but its something to keep in mind.
3) There are some very very good US farmstead made soft-ripened cheeses in the Camembert style made from pasturized milk - seek them out. They are increasingly widely available.
4) Make sure you are being sold a mature soft cheese. Immature cheeses are tasteless. If its too young (Which you can tell by feel/appearance/smell - try to avoid cutting into it) shove it in the back of your fridge for a week or so. If it stats to smell like ammonia you took it too far.

TL;DR - most brie and camembert eaten in France isn't very good either. American Versions are getting better and better. Make sure the cheese is mature.

Mimolette is a lot like aged Gouda because I believe it was a conscious effort to to copy dutch cheese.
posted by JPD at 7:16 AM on November 7, 2013 [6 favorites]

Alright guys, can we cheese it with the puns?
posted by TedW at 7:39 AM on November 7, 2013

5 mites per square inch? Yet the FDA allowance for mites on canned or dried mushrooms is "Average of 75 mites per 100 grams drained mushrooms and proportionate liquid or 15 grams of dried mushrooms."

Come ON.
posted by desuetude at 8:42 AM on November 7, 2013

Purposeful Grimace: "Based on nose alone you'd think the FDA would go after Vacherin first."

Don't even joke about it!!!
Vacherin is the secret ingredient to my magical xmas cheese fondue.
Mmmh, Vacherin.
So good.

And it's good for puns too:

One hand
*sunglasses*
vacherins the other.
posted by Hairy Lobster at 9:33 AM on November 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

Cigarettes and chewing tobacco: still totally legit to market, FDA says.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 10:16 AM on November 7, 2013 [3 favorites]

because... CHEETOS.
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 11:15 AM on November 7, 2013

Hairy Lobster, I sense you will favour my preferred french tongue twister

Quand the vache rit dans le vacherie, Tous les vaches rire dans le vacherie!


posted by chapps at 1:26 PM on November 7, 2013 [1 favorite]