The Cheese Plate Stands Alone

摘要

My reading of The Science of Cheese, by Michael H. Tunick, coincided with a surge of cheese-related controversy, when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) attempted to ban the practice of ripening cheeses on wooden boards. Many artisan cheese makers follow this traditional practice. In fact, certain kinds of cheese must be aged on a board for their labeling to legally bear the variety's name. In the face of public outcry and protests from producers about how the ruling would harm cheese making (and cheese eating) in the United States, the FDA backed down. Perhaps the whole issue could have been avoided if the agency had consulted a cheese scientist at the outset.