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Comment by adeltoso | Hacker News Reader

Food in the US is just such a pile of shit and ability to distiquish quality from garbage in americans is so non-existent that it doesn't surprise me that there is someone here in the US that really believes you can make Parmiggiano or Feta outside the area they got invented. They just don't get it and I feel sorry for them. I lived decades in Europe and US. If you are a dairy and have milk, make your own cheese, maybe in 500 years it will be decent, just don't produce knockoff products because "they sell", you are doing a disservice to your fellow americans by depriving them from learning how to taste things.

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Ah yes, food snobbery at its finest. Quality and garbage is generally easy to distinguish by price and taste, and shopkeepers discretion. And I really don't understand what part of the parm making process is necessary to happen in central/northern italy vs anywhere else in the world.

So that's OK; if you don't think parmesan from Parma is better, just buy Kraft parmesan - it's a fifth of the price.

But if there aren't labelling laws, then I won't be able to buy real parmesan with confidence.

Price is not a reliable guide to quality. Nor is "shopkeeper's discretion". Knowing that the cheese is made in accordance with strict regulations is a good guide.

Again, food snobbery. "If it isn't from Parma, then it must be Kraft quality"

> But if there aren't labelling laws,

No one argued against labeling laws except the strawman in your head. The question is whether something is specifically necessary about occuring in the region of Parma in the cheese making process of Parmesan. I don't think it is necessary to not let Kraft call their product "parmesan cheese" for the sake of consumer protection, when existing laws already make it illegal to falsely label your product - for example, trademark laws would not allow you to fake the DOCG label, and existing laws don't let you lie about the origin of the product (Kraft could not say "Made in Parma, Italy" on their product).

> Knowing that the cheese is made in accordance with strict regulations is a good guide.

Again, which is nothing I argued against. You can have strict regulations while not restricting the commonly understood usage of a word. In fact, you seem to agree in your actual usage, since you called it "Kraft parmesan", and not "Kraft parmesan-like cheese product"

It's true, there is a "strawman" in my head. I live in the UK, I appreciate the EU's origin labelling laws, and I'm afraid that any trade deal between the UK and the USA might involve sacrificing those consumer protections.

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