Oh dear, how sad, never mind (Brexit comes home to roost)

Missing my point, obviously a lot of people in France like the products as they sell and know about local producers as well.
Our local cheese maker at the market that my wife loves, asked about Scottish cheeses that I like and how it tastes, so I brought a Scottish extra mature cheddar back for him to taste, he really liked it and has asked for more the next time we are back in Scotland, horses for courses.
I have never been a food snob and I eat what I like and don’t suffer stuff I don’t just because it has won some award somewhere.

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Actually it would be a lot more expensive world because demand would drive up the price.

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OTOH no-one would make anything but the standard version that everyone bought, so perhaps supply and demand might balance after all. :wink:

That would depend on demand and supply being exactly balanced. If a product’s unique and popular, demand is likely to drive up price. And of course, that’s in addition to producers’ cartels like OPEC reducing supply to drive up the price of their products.

Nothing to do with snobbery, which is such a British obsession.

When I lived in the UK, but had a house in France, I realised that many cheeses don’t travel well and that many cheeses I’d choose in France, were in disappointing condition by the time they arrived in our local deli, even though the town was twinned with Millau in the Aveyron . Consequently I bought local Cheshire, Lancashire Derby etc; rather than imported French cheeses, but as I do in France, these were local artisanal from a cheesemonger rather than something off the supermarket shelf - not only is there a big difference in complexity of flavour, but you’re not supporting industrialised dairy farming and unnecessary food miles. I’m not a vegetarian but do believe in ethical consumption and actively resisting the American industrialised regime of food production, retail and consumer behaviour.

Food snobbery is a world wide thing, I have come across it in most of the 22 countries I have worked in, be it wine, food or cheese related, it’s not limited to the British.

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Actually I used ‘snobbery’ not ‘food snobbery’. My S African wife thinks it’s a defining Brit characteristic

On a lighter note, it could be amusing to offer SFers a few egs of your 22 nations’ food snobbery…

Mostly general things that the middle to upper classes thought that food wise was beneath them and food for the lower classes and is in every country, wine snobbery is world wide.
Some of the best meals I have had have been simple shared meals that the families could Ill afford to be sharing as they were very poorly paid compared to us Brits.
I had an Afrikaner supervisor who went to one of his chargehands daughters wedding in Kenya with me, he declared after the wedding that he wouldn’t have served the food to his pigs back home and that he was embarrassed that I had to endure eating it, also that the wine was laughably crap, he wasn’t very happy when I ripped into him about being an ungrateful arrogant snobbish twat.
Nearer to home was another colleagues wife who came to stay for a week, after the first nights meal that I made, she declared that she would take over the cooking duties as even though she said it herself, she was a superb cook, cue how she twittered on about how she didn’t know how I managed with such a basic kitchen as we had and all the specialised expensive cooking utensils she had collected over the years.
When we went to a 2 star Michelin restaurant, she regaled us with how she didn’t think the food was that special there and how even the the meal I had had made on the first night was better than this meal had been :face_with_raised_eyebrow: also she hadn’t realised that the wine we had in the kitchen rack was for the table and not just for cooking with, needless to say she has never been back no matter how many times she has hinted and my my wife reckoned I deserved a medal for keeping my mouth shut that week :yum:

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Ah, I beg to differ Fleur. It depends what Cheddar… just as it would for a particular French cheese.

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Couldnt agree more.this is made locally in the UK.

I do love Ossau Iraty in France.

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Oh dear what a shame never mind! Can we get back to Brexit?

They could do with something of this in the UK if the adverts are anything to go by.

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Not only cheese!

When we were still going back and forth between UK and France we carried the coffee we love so much in France back to UK. Sadly, no matter using exactly the same Brikka Bialetti pots, it was not at all the same :cry:. We blamed the milk until a friend of ours working with 3M said it was the water!!

Clearly, we like a good dollop of calcium with our coffee because here in Vaucluse it’s a limestone heaven.
:smile: :coffee: :yum:

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I don’t know about snobbery but there is definitely passionate patriotic pride.

I once had a very lively (impassioned by Prosecco) debate with a dear Italian friend over my preference for Italian wines over French. My argument, aside from all the romantic imaginations, was they just taste more interesting and likeable to me, and since he cannot know how my tongue tastes, “better” is surely a matter of personal choice.

I still stand by that. My favourite of all red wines is from Chateau Musar from the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon. Hundreds of years of history in that soil. To me, it is magical. :heart_eyes:

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I thought we’d moved on to our stand-by safety! - :cheese: :wine_glass:

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With how much drugs trade came/comes out of the Beqaa Valley especially during the civil war, there might be another reason for the wines excellent taste :wink::yum::laughing:

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Water is seemingly very important in making coffee that’s good. I can drink coffee black in Italy and it’s tolerable that way in France, but not the UK.

Environmental factors too make a big difference, together with the food one has eaten when it comes to drinking. I really like retsina in Greece, but it’s so often just thin and sharp in the UK, even when it’s an otherwise good variety carried in a suitcase and drunk with Greek-style food.

Many of the delicacies from different countries sprang from brutal poverty, yet are now seen as matters of national pride and excellence. This seems to me to be a form of snobbery, albeit a rather stange one…

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True. Spare ribs was left overs for slaves and artichokes were given to farm animals. Thing is, as long as it tastes good, why not!

However, I was once presented with a flourish, a dish in China that on first look I thought to be calamari. After a brief explanation to transpired it was sliced and fried intestines. I did not even ask what animal but apologised and said I was a veggiesaurus. :flushed:

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Not had that for a long time, but it’s certainly memorable, a remarkable wine that continued to be produced in the most challenging of circumstances

For me one of the very few advantages of living in the UK, as opposed to a major wine producing country was the opportunity to taste great wines from other oenologically important valleys around the world - Douro, Clare and Hunter, Maipo, Napa…

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Oh… I didn’t see this reported in the Daily Mail, the Express or the Telegraph.