A Manifesto in Defence of Raw Milk Cheese

The Following Manifesto was presented at this year's Salone del Gusto.
Don't forget to send your endorsement to rawmilk@slowfood.com.

"The European Alliance for Artisan and Traditional Raw Milk Cheese (EAT) is a pressure group to which Slow Food and several other national cheese associations belong. It was founded in Brussels last autumn by the British producer Sir Julian Rose, to defend traditional unpasteurised cheese production. The simple idea behind the Alliance is the following: the new hyper-hygienic trend in food specifications and the pressure of standardisation and homogenisation from mass-producers to government agencies have inevitably undermined the traditional production of unpasteurised cheese. Pasteurisation does kill germs ­ and satifies large companies ­ but it also kills flavour and eliminates the country scents distinctive in each cheese. The objections that are usually raised at this point by the sirens defending "public health" are not convincing: people have eaten raw milk cheese for centuries, and it has never caused any disasters. On the contrary, the most sensational cases of poisoning have been caused by industrially-produced pasteurised cheeses, where errors during the process of production can provoke a quick and dangerous degeneration. In fact by pasteurising cheeses, their own biological defence is lost. No-one who loves cheese will accept being prevented from choice as could now happen.

"Urged by artisan cheesekamers from America, Australia and Europe ­ whose raw milk products are seriously threatened by the national sanitation authorities, EAT felt that drafting a manifesto in defence of raw-milk cheese was right and proper in these times, for spreading in the word.

"Slow Food, in conjunction with several other associations, will promote for the whole of next year an international campaign in favour of raw milk cheese, through tastings and events organized by its 600 convivia and through a collection of endorsements to the Manifesto launched by its web site.

"All endorsers will send an e-mail to rawmilk@slowfood.com with their own full name, city and country of origin, plus the phrase "I eat raw milk cheese".

"All the endorsements collected by Slow Food and the other associations involved in the campaign will be publicized at Cheese 2001 (in Bra ­ Italy, the hometown of Slow Food, next September) by a real United Nations of Cheeses."

Turin Photos: Fingal Ferguson

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text © John & Sally McKenna
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