Cheese, or at least all good cheese, arises out of the mysterious mating of milk, enzymes and bacteria, and federal bureaucrats do not take kindly to either mysteries or germs. This week, a few of those bureaucrats horrified cheese-eaters across the country by banning cheese that is ripened or aged on wooden boards, apparently unaware that they are upsetting the natural rhythms of the universe.
As Slate reported today, that ban could spell the end for many award-winning American cheeses, like Cabot’s Clothbound cheddar, Pleasant Ridge Reserve, and Marieke Feonegreek gouda. Shockingly, it could also restrict the imports of cheeses like Beaufort, Comté, and even Parmigiano Reggiano. (A chunk of the latter always occupies a place of honor in my family’s refrigerator.)
The Food and Drug Administration is afraid that the wooden boards could harbor harmful bacteria. They don’t seem to get that bacteria are the whole point of the boards — they are designed to transmit what Slate calls “the rich ecosystem of bacteria and fungi” that gives each cheese a particular flavor or texture. If properly cared for, the boards and their germs don’t harm human life; if they did, the process wouldn’t have continued for hundreds of years.
“A sense of disbelief and distress is quickly rippling through the U.S. artisan cheese community,” according to the Wisconsin blog Cheese Underground.
Naturally, conservatives and libertarians see this move as yet another assault on liberty by the Obama administration. It’s not. It’s a dumb mistake by the F.D.A., not a metaphor for overreach that implies the government should also stop regulating coal emissions and health insurance policies. The editorial board, in fact, has argued that the Obama administration should be doing more regulating, not less.
But the government needs to be smart about what it controls. Misguided germophobia may seem trivial to those without a Reggiano habit, but it creates the kind of skepticism and ridicule that makes it harder to regulate the big stuff.
Updated, 5:55 p.m. |
This afternoon, responding to the uproar in the cheese world, the F.D.A. issued a statement saying it was willing to work with artisanal cheese makers to determine if some cheeses could be safely made on wooden boards. The agency is “always open to evidence that shows that wood can be safely used for specific purposes, such as aging cheese,” the statement said, according to the Associated Press. Of course, that evidence has been around for a very long time, and the F.D.A. should have examined it long before issuing an ill-advised ban.