Wednesday Wonderings - Cheddar v Camembert

Posted by Rosie

Should the French be selling more Cheddar?

As I grated cheddar cheese into Tom's wrap for his picnic lunch (he is doing the inter-school cross country run today), I got to thinking about some comments I had seen on the web about how awful it was that France doesn't sell cheddar.  In fact it is available in many supermarkets, albeit in small and quite overpriced packets and sometimes in a somewhat worrying rather orange colour.  But should France be selling more of Britain's favourite cheese, as many people were bemoaning, as well as Stilton, Caerphilly, Crowdie and all the others you can buy "back home"?

Image from BBC

France is very proud of it's national identity and French resistance to change is deeply ingrained.  They have the Académie Française that does it's best to prevent anglicised words slipping into the language although, despite their best efforts, the likes of weekend, camping car, sandwich, stop etc are all used quite happily by the French population.  On the question of food some French believe that their food is the finest in the world and they should not be selling "inferior" produce from around other countries in the (quite possibly) mistaken belief that nothing can be as good as their own.  They also strongly believe in their cultural identity, the likes of camembert et al doing much to retain this.  But is this reticence to sell more cheddar simply because they actually believe their cheeses are unsurpassed and they must retain their cultural identity no matter what or are they worried that if shops begin to sell a wide range of British cheeses, many of which are very different to French cheeses, they will see the people move away from Camembert, Port Salut and Roquefort and enjoy these foreign imports.   I don't know.

What I do believe is that France should not have to sell Cheddar or cheese from any other country if it doesn't want to.  They should have the choice.  In doing so you will always know for sure that you are in a French supermarket as the cheese aisle will always be (mostly) full of French cheeses.  However from an economic position I think they are being very short-sighted in not to be selling something that the vast numbers of tourists and ex-pats would so readily buy and something I believe many French people would enjoy.  We stock up on cheddar when we return from trips to England but wouldn't have to if it was readily available here at a competitive price and where-by we would be putting money directly into the French economy.  

Not selling cheddar may well then be a case of French pride shooting itself in the foot.  Simply refusing to sell something because it is not what you have done in the past or because you think your product is better or because you are worried it will outsell French products does not make for great economic sense.   I do not know if cheddar and the likes would ever outstrip Camembert in French cheese sales but I do reckon sales would do well as more French people discover that a cheddar sandwich, eaten on a weekend trip out in their camping car isn't actually as horrible as they might think!  Stop!!  They might even find Branston pickle tastes good too!

Cheddar and Camembert - should they be sharing shelf space in French shops?

What do you think about this?  Do you miss cheddar when you come to France or do you relish the chance to buy French cheese?