Okay, Mr. UK-South Coast. Now I know where you are coming from. You may be right but if you should see KerryGold Dubliner Aged Cheese give it a try. You may be surprised. Not saying converted just surprised.
By the way, the tasting folks agreed dry mead is good! And the spicy pepperoni slices,dubliner cheese, pita chips, blood red orange slices, peppered goat cheese and soy-wasabi almonds made a decent pairing. Thanks for the suggests all.
Well I'm glad that I didn't pile in with the flames. It seems that you good people from across the pond do appreciate some of the "proper" naming conventions
Though in truth, it doesn't help when the USDA insist that they're always right etc, as well.
I know that the French aren't fond of UK cheeses, though the most ubiquitous of styles i.e cheese that's been "cheddared" in the manufacturing process is very flexible in use. The one that is probably considered by France to be good, would be "Stilton", which is a protected name and made only in a very limited geographical location.
Don't get me wrong, I've worked in the dairy industry and some of the "big boys" do make a very respectable product, I just don't appreciate some of the fancy technical methods used to make "faux" cheddar very much (freshly made it's quite rubbery/plasticy in texture and they freeze it to make it like the "proper" crumbly mature cheddar, etc etc).
Like a lot of things, cheese making in Ireland doesn't have a big tradition, but with the help of big business, they do make a considerable amount - though it's hardly "traditional" (some of it is very good though).
Same applies to anything in such a way. I'd rather allow the strict usage of geographic naming to be used only by the originators, but as some good, similar stuff is made elsewhere, then there should be nothing wrong with using the "style" suffix. Hence, Polish Mead and Polish "style" mead. Etc etc. Much like the way that software developers have gone out of their way to define the different "englishes". Here we do tend to speak a very similar language, but they're also very different - so are they actually different dialects or not? Don't know, but in respect of the different regions it does come in handy to identify the different spellings and grammatical usage.......
Ok, I'll get me coat.......
regards
fatbloke
p.s. erm, I suspect that the USDA would go up the wall if someone was selling properly produced traditional cheddar - they'd consider the muslin/cotton cheese cloth wrapping as unhygienic, and that's without taking into account the mould growth during the maturing period......
p.p.s. and as Kerry is the opposite side of the country to Dublin, then "Kerry Gold Dubliner" aged cheese would also be a misnomer! Not to say that they don't make some nice tasting stuff in Kerry and Dublin!
I'm about to get flamed aren't I....
