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phkahler

>> San Marzanos are origin-protected in Italy

What does that mean? Protected under what laws?

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It's like trademark but instead of:

"only this company can decide who can use the trademark"

It's like:

"only if it's production fulfills certain criteria can you use the name"

It's made as a consumer protection so that people can not just claim their product is this kind of "traditional" product when it isn't. Except that it's less used like a consumer protection as it's mainly used like a trademark. Controlled by a small group of people and directly profiting some regional government/economy.

Most commonly it requires the main ingredient to come from a specific region (also e.g. used for Wine or Sect).

EDIT: I kinda did throw different regulations into one explanation here.

It's a shame that Cheddar doesn't have good protection.

Real cheddar is full of flavour, slightly sour. Great stuff.

But you can go to places like the US and cheddar is not cheddar and they should not be allowed to call that cheddar.

“Farmhouse cheddar” I believe is the protected term for cheese from Cheddar or nearby.

Interesting, I was not aware of this.

you can get good cheddar in the US. Here is a widely available brand which is much better than average US cheddar https://www.tillamook.com/products/cheese/sharp-white-chedda... aged cheddar is nom nom nom

I will have to try it next time over there, but please don't be offended when I say that based upon all the cheeses I have eaten over there I won't be holding my breath.

"West Country Cheddar" is protected. I doubt you can get that in the US very easily though.

Probably because they won't understand what "West Country" means?

Cheddar in most places outside the UK is "not cheddar". If I go to the supermarket here in Sweden and buy the first "cheddar" I see prominently displayed, I'm not getting cheddar from the UK.

I agree, it's Red Leicester at best. Completely lacking in any depth or complexity of flavour.

To be clear, you can get 'real' Cheddar as well if you go to the 'fancy' cheese section of a 'fancy' supermarket and pay 3 times as much.

You know how "champagne" is technically only champagne if the grapes are from the Champagne region of France, and otherwise it's just sparkling wine? That's a legal designation in the EU.

Bourbon, too.

You know how "champagne" is technically only champagne if the grapes are from the Champagne region of France

Unless you live in Russia :)

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57733684

> French producers are still allowed to use the word champagne on the front of bottles, but the use of "shampanskoye" is allowed only on local produce.

Exactly. Russian sparkling wine is called "shampanskoye", not "champagne" ;)

The EU is the main place that has these laws sorts of laws. I beleive that they will include it in trade deals so that it is enforceable in more of the world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographical_indications_and_t...

Protected under what laws?

Protected under EU law. Only tomatoes of a specific type AND from the specific region can use the name "San Marzanos".

Outside the EU I don't think there is anything stopping yoou from labling any random tomato as "San Marzano".

I may be wrong but I believe the canada-eu and eu-japan treaties also protect most denominations of origin (or rather, most by value rather than by specific items, but San Marzano should be included).

It's a regulation [0] that says that products that are associated with a specific geographic location cannot be manufactured elsewhere and then passed off as the original.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_designation_of_origi...

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