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Comment by iso1631 | Hacker News Reader

Can I splat "Made in America" and an American flag on my crappy Chineese imports? Can I sell "Idaho potatoes" which were grown in Ireland? Can I buy "Florida orange juice" made with Brazillian oranges?

One issue with a EU-US trade deal was that US farmers didn't want to have labelling rules to inform the consumer. Indeed they specifically wanted to remove the option that I, the consumer, had in deciding what to eat. The US government negotiating objectives call for ‘new and enforceable rules to eliminate unjustified trade restrictions or unjustified commercial requirements (including unjustified labeling) that affect new technologies.’

As swindling the consumer the is the M.O. of big business. I'd rather err on the side of the consumer. Naming protections - be it country or region of origin or trademarks in general - do not restrict consumer choice. I can buy "greek style" cheese if I want "feta style" that's not made in Greece.

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The EU PDO scheme conflates geographic origin and a particular type of product in a way that is transparently protectionist and silly. When people say "feta cheese" or "american cheese", they're not asking for "made in Feta cheese" or "made in America cheese". They're asking for a particular flavor profile and cooking behavior, and possibly a specific method of manufacture. There is no particular reason why you can't make feta outside of Feta. There is nothing magical about the location in Greece that makes cheese produced in the same way outside of the town inherently inferior. Fuck terroir.

There is no particular reason why you can't make "florida orange juice" outside of florida

If I want to Buy American (tm), or Buy Greek, or whatever, that's my right as a consumer. I have no problem with your dodgy Chinese knockoff being sold, I do have a problem when it pretends to be the genuine article.

Feta is not a region in Greece. Feta is a type of cheese that has the whole of Greece as the terroir. It’s also made with sheep and goat milk and the cow-based cheese that resembles it (white cheese, salad cheese etc) just doesn’t compare taste wise.

With all that said, if you see (in the EU) something being called Feta, you immediately know what it’s made of and that it’s made in Greece.

God, I wish HN had an edit comment button right about now...

Regardless, my argument is not "you should be able to call cow's milk feta cheese", it's "labeling standards should not require a product to be made in a certain place". A strict labeling standard that said "feta has to be made from sheep or goat's milk" is perfectly defensible. One that says "it has to be made in a specific country" isn't.

Hehe

I do agree with you though. As a Greek living abroad, I wouldn’t mind eating Feta that’s made in Turkey, Bulgaria, Albania etc (neighboring countries which share a lot of the culinary/pastoral tradition), as long as I knew that the ingredients and methods are the same. Which is hard to do without strict regulations though, especially outside the EU.

Fun fact: there must be thousands of regional variations of Feta Cheese in Greece. Major supermarkets will carry at least 5-6 brands, and in the cheese section you will get an extra 4-5 varieties. They are all called Feta + place name, and they differ in fat content, water content, acidity, saltiness, tanginess etc. Delicious and sad that most non-Greeks haven’t had a taste of good tasting Feta as the exported varieties are usually pretty meh.

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