The EU’s disputed system of geographical indications is taking over the planet (2017) • Hacker News Board

Re: The EU’s disputed system of geographical indications is taking over the planet (2017)

#241

Post by DiogenesKynikos » Mon, Jun 28, 2021, 11:50 AM UTC

cheese_goddess wrote: post #240

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had feta in Greece and feta elsewhere in the Balkans. The range of differences between feta cheeses produced in different parts of Greece is not necessarily smaller than the difference between a feta produced in Epirus (Northwest Greece) and Albania (possibly even by Greek Albanians!). The geographic indication is nonsensical if the point is to ensure uniform quality or taste. It sounds like what you're most wor…

There are sheep and goat's milk cheeses made in the Mediterrannean and in the Balkans and as far as Romania, yes, but those cheeses are not made in the same way as feta and they have a different character than feta. For example Sirene, a Romanian cheese is sometimes made with sheep and goat's milk, but it's a softer and overall milder cheese than feta. They would taste same-y to anyone unused to eating for example fe…

> those cheeses are not made in the same way as feta and they have a different character than feta

That depends on which cheese we're talking about. There's enough variation between different Greek fetas that lumping then all into one group and excluding other closely related cheeses does not make sense, from a purely culinary point of view.

> Cheese made across the border from Epirus in Albania ... may be very similar, but it's not called "feta" in Albanian.

And that's the point. The distinction is purely national and linguistic. White briny cheese made with goat's and sheep's milk in Epirus and southern Albania are not treated differently by the EU because of intrinsic differences between the cheeses. They're treated differently because the Greek government was able to successfully lobby for a geographical indication that excludes cheeses produced outside its borders.

Re: The EU’s disputed system of geographical indications is taking over the planet (2017)

#242

Post by cheese_goddess » Mon, Jun 28, 2021, 11:58 AM UTC

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #235

cheese_goddess wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the goal were simply to make sure that Feta always tastes like "authentic" Feta, then the regulations would focus on ingredients, process and the final product. But regulations about where the product is produced exist because producers want to exclude competition. This is not true and you don't know things as well as you think you do. PDO regulations absolutely focus precisely on ingredients, process and the fi…

> PDO regulations absolutely focus precisely on ingredients, process and the final product. Lots of food types that are not geographic indications have strict requirements on ingredients, process, finished product. The geographic restriction for "feta" serves no purpose except to favor the producers who lobbied for the geographic indication. You could strip off the geographic restriction, and you'd have a normal food…

> There's nothing particularly special or distinctive or uniform about Greek feta.

So you insist, but it's clear to me you do this without any substantial knowledge of feta, or the similar cheeses made around the area, other than what a quick googe could tell you.

In truth, it takes rather more than a quick google to realise that what you say is wrong. The other cheeses that are similar to feta and made in the Balkans, Turkey, Romania, etc, are almost always made primarily with cow's milk, sometimes with added goat's milk. Why? Because cow's milk is cheaper. Why? Because cows produce a lot more milk than sheep. Individual cows produce double or triple the amount of milk of individual sheep and cows can be milked all year round whereas sheep are only milked between February and September.

Even in Greece, non-PDO cheeses made in the style of feta (or other PDO cheeses like kasseri) are made with cow's milk, again because it's cheaper because it's more plentiful. More precisely, those non-PDO cow's milk cheeses made in Greece with cow's milk are made with cow's milk imported from nearby countries that have substantially larger dairy cow herds than Greece.

Greeks make most of their cheeses with sheep and goat's milk (pretty much every single Greek PDO cheese is a sheep and goat's milk cheese, except for Metsovone, St. Michali, Kopanisti and Graviera Naxou and the latter two can also be made with sheep and goat's milk). This is actually a very stringent restriction and it gives an easy advantage on price and profitabilty to cheeses made with cow's milk, which is why the most common adulteration of Greek PDO cheeses is with cow's milk imported from Bulgaria, Turkey, etc.

So basically what you say is completely wrong. Greeks are forced to make their cheeses according to the PDO regulations. Everyone else is free to make theirs any old way they want. That's why Greek feta is different than other cheeses in the region. It's the market forces.

You keep making assumptions based on incomplete knowledge of the cheese market and then you state these assumptions with great certainty, even though they are completely wrong. Please don't do that, that's just spreading misinformation.

Re: The EU’s disputed system of geographical indications is taking over the planet (2017)

#243

Post by cheese_goddess » Mon, Jun 28, 2021, 12:15 PM UTC

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #241

cheese_goddess wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are sheep and goat's milk cheeses made in the Mediterrannean and in the Balkans and as far as Romania, yes, but those cheeses are not made in the same way as feta and they have a different character than feta. For example Sirene, a Romanian cheese is sometimes made with sheep and goat's milk, but it's a softer and overall milder cheese than feta. They would taste same-y to anyone unused to eating for example fe…

> those cheeses are not made in the same way as feta and they have a different character than feta That depends on which cheese we're talking about. There's enough variation between different Greek fetas that lumping then all into one group and excluding other closely related cheeses does not make sense, from a purely culinary point of view. > Cheese made across the border from Epirus in Albania ... may be very simil…

Nope, that's a load of ignorant horseshit. Do yourself a favour and read about the PDO process. It's nothing to do with "lobbying" anyone. "The Greek government" did not "lobby" anyone, rather the producers of feta cheese in specific regions of Greece applied for their product to be given a PDO by the EU. The application was of course supported by the Greek government. At the same time, it was contested by the Danish, German and French goverments because industries in those countries had been selling cow's milk cheese as "feta" for sometime and didn't want to lose the revenue. These three countries also didn't "lobby" anything - they contested the PDO application in the courts. They lost, so feta is a Greek PDO cheese.

"Lobbied"! Seriously.

Re: The EU’s disputed system of geographical indications is taking over the planet (2017)

#244

Post by cheese_goddess » Mon, Jun 28, 2021, 12:20 PM UTC

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #241

cheese_goddess wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are sheep and goat's milk cheeses made in the Mediterrannean and in the Balkans and as far as Romania, yes, but those cheeses are not made in the same way as feta and they have a different character than feta. For example Sirene, a Romanian cheese is sometimes made with sheep and goat's milk, but it's a softer and overall milder cheese than feta. They would taste same-y to anyone unused to eating for example fe…

> those cheeses are not made in the same way as feta and they have a different character than feta That depends on which cheese we're talking about. There's enough variation between different Greek fetas that lumping then all into one group and excluding other closely related cheeses does not make sense, from a purely culinary point of view. > Cheese made across the border from Epirus in Albania ... may be very simil…

> There's enough variation between different Greek fetas that lumping then all into one group and excluding other closely related cheeses does not make sense, from a purely culinary point of view.

"Culinary point of view"? Give me a break. You haven't even tried Greek feta, let alone all those other cheeses...

Re: The EU’s disputed system of geographical indications is taking over the planet (2017)

#245

Post by DiogenesKynikos » Mon, Jun 28, 2021, 12:45 PM UTC

cheese_goddess wrote: post #244

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> those cheeses are not made in the same way as feta and they have a different character than feta That depends on which cheese we're talking about. There's enough variation between different Greek fetas that lumping then all into one group and excluding other closely related cheeses does not make sense, from a purely culinary point of view. > Cheese made across the border from Epirus in Albania ... may be very simil…

> There's enough variation between different Greek fetas that lumping then all into one group and excluding other closely related cheeses does not make sense, from a purely culinary point of view. "Culinary point of view"? Give me a break. You haven't even tried Greek feta, let alone all those other cheeses...

I've eaten Greek feta in Greece and identical cheeses elsewhere in the Balkans. I obviously can't prove that to you over the internet, but I'm okay with that.

I simply think it's a bit absurd to try to claw back a generic food name, simply because it originated in one country. I can at least sympathize with Champagne as a geographic indication, since there is a region with that name, but "feta" is just a Greek word (borrowed from Italian) that's become international thanks to the Greek diaspora.

Re: The EU’s disputed system of geographical indications is taking over the planet (2017)

#246

Post by cheese_goddess » Mon, Jun 28, 2021, 12:58 PM UTC

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #245

cheese_goddess wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's enough variation between different Greek fetas that lumping then all into one group and excluding other closely related cheeses does not make sense, from a purely culinary point of view. "Culinary point of view"? Give me a break. You haven't even tried Greek feta, let alone all those other cheeses...

I've eaten Greek feta in Greece and identical cheeses elsewhere in the Balkans. I obviously can't prove that to you over the internet, but I'm okay with that. I simply think it's a bit absurd to try to claw back a generic food name, simply because it originated in one country. I can at least sympathize with Champagne as a geographic indication, since there is a region with that name, but "feta" is just a Greek word (…

The word, maybe. The cheese, not. You can't make feta that tastes like feta outside of Greece.

And you haven't eaten all those "identical cheeses" or you'd know they're not identical. Although I suppose you may just have a very poor sense of taste.

Edit: No, really, I straight up don't believe you that you've tried different cheeses around the Balkans. Maybe you tried one or two, but not the way you make it sound, like you tasted a great variety and found them all the same. First because that's absurd -even if all those cheeses were similar in taste they wouldn't be identical, because that's not how cheese works. And second because you've already made up a whole bunch of stuff in this conversation, like all that nonsense about lobbying. You're clearly trying to "wing" it. So I don't believe what you say.

Re: The EU’s disputed system of geographical indications is taking over the planet (2017)

#247

Post by newnamenewface » Mon, Jun 28, 2021, 2:07 PM UTC

Symbiote wrote: post #95

newnamenewface wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but certain things are no more owned by one country or region than the world due to the dispersive nature of culture. If a Greek moves to the US and starts making feta there (say, even with the same milk fermenting bacteria), it's still feta, unless it's truly believed that national character imparts flavor. What then becomes the difference if a Greek teaches another how to make feta and they do it elsewhere? Or…

If an employee of Nike, at whatever level, leaves the company to make their own shoes, they can no longer use the Nike trademark to market them.

There's a difference here. Most people don't make shoes in their kitchen. Most people do produce foods and pick up recipes from regions proximal and distant. It's one of the inherent motivators of travel and commerce for centuries.

Further, Feta, for instance, has existed for hundreds of years. It's no more owned by one person than Greeks themselves at this point. It's spread over the world, in the same way as Parmesan, or other cheeses and foods. The supposition that this is exactly like trademark law is absurd and mechanical.

Re: The EU’s disputed system of geographical indications is taking over the planet (2017)

#248

Post by newnamenewface » Mon, Jun 28, 2021, 2:08 PM UTC

makapuf wrote: post #90

newnamenewface wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but certain things are no more owned by one country or region than the world due to the dispersive nature of culture. If a Greek moves to the US and starts making feta there (say, even with the same milk fermenting bacteria), it's still feta, unless it's truly believed that national character imparts flavor. What then becomes the difference if a Greek teaches another how to make feta and they do it elsewhere? Or…

The exact same argument can be made for nike shoes.

Discounting a whole lot of nuance, you apparently can use Nike shoes in any argument.

Re: The EU’s disputed system of geographical indications is taking over the planet (2017)

#249

Post by newnamenewface » Mon, Jun 28, 2021, 2:14 PM UTC

seszett wrote: post #88

roelschroeven wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Champagne is not a trademark like Nike. While I think everyone should be able to produce Champagne under the name Champagne, I think only Veuve Clicquot, Bollinger, ... should be able to use those specific names. Those are trademarks like Nike.

I still don't understand why you would call Champagne something that does not come from Champagne, can't you just call it New South Wales or Napa Valley or wherever you are making it? How is it not misleading to call it by the name of a place that it does not come from?

Because champagne is a synonym for 'sparkling wine' as well as a region at this point.

Re: The EU’s disputed system of geographical indications is taking over the planet (2017)

#250

Post by mint2 » Mon, Jun 28, 2021, 3:02 PM UTC

alexitorg wrote: post #215

greatgib wrote: post #9

> The wording is strange, it looks like they say that it is wrong to say that it is inauthentic. But, there is no doubt, if you buy Greek feta that is manufactured in Australia in addition with different recipes and ingredients origins, it is clearly inauthentic and deceptive.

It seems crazy that you can have Greek immigrants in Australia making feta cheese the traditional way and not being able to sell it as Feta. It seems to me to be protectionism pure and simple. But that is what Europeans seem to want. In the long run the reputation of products will match their quality, and if it is any good, people will be eating Australian white goat cheese instead of Greek Feta. You see that happeni…

If I bought California olive oil and it turned out to be made in France I would feel deceived. As a consumer, If I buy something that it’s named for a region it should either come from the region or say “style” if it’s made exactly the same way but somewhere else. If not, I feel duped.