On Food and Cooking

local, complex flora of each cheesemaker’s
dairy.
The crowning blow to cheese diversity and
quality was World War II. In continental
Europe, agricultural lands became
battlefields, and dairying was devastated.
During the prolonged recovery, quality
standards were suspended, factory production
was favored for its economies of scale and
ease of regulation, and consumers were
grateful for any approximation of the prewar
good life. Inexpensive standardized cheese
rose to dominance. Ever since, most cheese in
Europe and the United States has been made
in factories. Even in France, which in 1973
established a certification program (“Fromage
appellation d’origine contrôlée”) to indicate
that a cheese has been made by traditional
methods and in the traditional area of
production, less than 20% of the total national
production qualifies. In the United States, the
market for process cheese, a mixture of aged