Gourmet Cheese

The European Union Said No to Non-Greek Feta Cheese
Michalis 'BIG Mike' Kotzakolios


Defined Tag: Feta Cheese.

Feta Cheese is made from either goat or sheep’s milk, as has been the tradition in Greece for thousands of years. It is one of the oldest cheeses made by man. This cheese is cured and salted in liquid that is either water or whey based for at least three months. It is a white cheese, with a tangy salty taste. It is also now the legal property of the Greeks.

The European Commission decided in October of 2002, that the claim Greece had been trying to make was reasonable and voted to allow them to be the only European country that could sell feta cheese using that name. This made other countries, particularly Denmark, France and Germany, very unhappy. They make and export their own type of feta cheese; Denmark alone exports upwards of twenty thousand metric tons. Whereas Greece makes over one hundred thousand metric tons but most of that is for domestic use.

This is no different than when the European Commission decided to protect French Champagne, Italian Parma Ham or Newcastle Brown Ale. It just seems to have been greeted with more objections. Denmark said it would continue the battle that has raged for thirteen years over the feta cheese name in the courts.

Oddly the complaint coming from Denmark is that they have been making feta cheese for decades. Yet, they seem to forget that the Greeks can trace it back to ancient Greece and the times of Homer. There are even myths written about the first feta cheese maker, a cyclop named Polyphemus. The story is told that he carried milk from his sheep in animal skin bags on a long trip. After a few days he noticed the milk had become solid, tasty and easier to preserve.

One of the arguments that were given in favor of the name remaining Greek property was that the Greeks believe that if must be made only from sheep or goat’s milk. Some countries began to make it from cow’s milk. But also, they believe it tasted better if the animals were those raised solely on fields in Greece where the animals were eating only flowers and grasses from those fields.

BIG Mike is a well known author, developer and Adsense expert as well as the owner of Niche Maniacs - a unique Adsense Marketing System designed to build long-term passive income streams from Adsense, Amazon, YPN, Chitika and other PPC services.