Is Cheese Frivolous?

New Zealand Listener, Volume 20, Issue 508, 18 March 1949, Page 22

Is Cheese Frivolous?

N official report recently issued in England suggesting that France should re-orient her economy and become a provider of staple foods, cheese for example, not the luxury sorts of course, but the more "serious" kinds of cheese, in which Britain might be interested, prompted Georges Schwartz to write an article which appeared in the Sunday Times under the title of "More Serious Cheese." The following extraéts from this article were passed on to The Listener by the French Legation in Wellington. I would implore the Government and my countrymen in general to lay off the subject of cheese. I can imagine the French Minister of Commerce sending for the French Commercial Attache in London and speaking with some asperity, "M. de Remy, you are supposed to understand these gastronomical barbarians. You are paid to understand them. Mais, qu’est ce que ca veut dire? Un fromage sérieux? Is a Roquefort frivolous or wayward? Is there anything inconsequential or debatable about Port Salut? Do we enter into the realm of the conjectural with Brie ot of promis-’ cuity with Pont l’Evéque? I admit that there is an air of irresolution about a ripe Camembert, but it is then at its

best. You will inform His Britannic Majesty's Government that France will not transmute her sunshine and lush pastures into serious cheeses. My compliments to that formidable lady, Madame Summerskill." I must say that I have a certain sympathy with this attitude, the author adds. The Government here hoasts that it is forging an egalitarian society which puts first things first, and is thus setting a pattern for the rest of the world. One of the bases for this society is a large export trade in high-quality goods to countries which it is fervently hoped will not put first things first, to the point of excluding the so-called non-essentials. Who is going to buy our motor-cars and expensive pottery, our high grade textiles and television sets? Only the countries with a social structure we affect to despise? For whom do we hope to become a leading fur centre? Undoubtedly we are constrained at the moment to produce goods which we cannot afford widely to consume at home, but we must not make a virtue and a doctrine of this. On the contrary we must set out speedily to remedy this state of affairs, and a free exchange of goods may be the one way of doing it.