[HN Gopher] French cheese under threat from lack of microbial di...
___________________________________________________________________
French cheese under threat from lack of microbial diversity
Author : perihelions
Score : 104 points
Date : 2024-01-19 14:01 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (news.cnrs.fr)
(TXT) w3m dump (news.cnrs.fr)
| wkat4242 wrote:
| In this case it looks like a completely self-imposed problem by
| the industry.
|
| Pretty similar to the fishing industry actually. Focus on short-
| term profits and none on long term sustainability :'(
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| You make it seem like they knew and just ignored the risks of
| lowering the biodiversity. The exceptionally more likely
| scenario is they had no idea what those risks were.
|
| It's also complete clickbait nonsense to suggest blue cheeses
| will go away. When the reality is they may add some more
| colors, or have to come up with some more options. But these
| cheeses aren't going anywhere.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| If blue cheese is no longer blue then you could argue it did
| go away.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Yeah, pretty much this from the article:
|
| > Consequently, the fungi that have accumulated multiple
| deleterious mutations in their genomes over years of vegetative
| propagation become virtually infertile, adversely affecting
| cheese production. "This is what happens when we completely
| stop using sexual reproduction," Giraud explains. "It's the
| only way to compensate for detrimental mutations through the
| introduction of new genes - the famous genetic mixing."
|
| Live and learn. Seems like a common story in agriculture.
| Perhaps we can relearn this lesson in the context of human
| propagation someday.
| incomingpain wrote:
| Tip: People with allergies to penicillin often love blue cheeses
| but are unknowingly harming themselves mildly.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penicillium_roqueforti
|
| Yes, most of the penicillin breaks down... but..
| hollerith wrote:
| Most of the penicillin breaks down before it has a chance to
| enter the bloodstream, but not before the components of the
| immune system resident in the gut and the gut's lining detect
| it, initiating a reaction that can involve the entire body.
| incomingpain wrote:
| Totally correct!
| sokoloff wrote:
| If I had such an allergy, I'm pretty sure I would continue to
| harm myself mildly, knowingly or not.
| incomingpain wrote:
| Lol, guilty as charged. Blue cheese dressing with my wings is
| still a thing I do.
|
| I do the others as well like ranch, so it's not that common
| and I get away with it I think.
| manmal wrote:
| Do you mean blue cheese in particular, or just anything
| stimulating opioid receptors?
| InitialLastName wrote:
| I was hoping your link would have interesting information about
| allergic reactions to blue cheese (and possibly a trend where
| those allergic to penicillin are drawn to blue cheese), but for
| anyone who follows: no such luck.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| > People with allergies to penicillin often love blue cheeses
|
| Are you saying penicillin allergies cause or influence this? Or
| simply coincidental, since many people in general like blue
| cheese.
|
| Also, supposedly penicillin allergies are often inaccurate.
| Either false diagnosis as a child or simply growing out of it.
| Guess maybe blue cheese could be a good test.
| incomingpain wrote:
| \0/
|
| I don't know is the correct most answer I can provide.
|
| In terms of am I allergic, oh ya, no question. Recently been
| minorly exposed and reaffirmed that one again. Though
| typically I must take it internally to really screw me up.
|
| Blue cheeses taste like it's an elixer of the gods to me.
| totally unlike all other things. I enjoy practically all
| other cheeses, but they are not quite the same thing.
| telesilla wrote:
| Those consumers who also don't buy heritage tomatoes or apples
| because of the irregularities in appearance, will be the ones who
| lose out. Sounds like there are still plenty of opportunities for
| cheeses, just not in a uniform delivery.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| It's a crime against humanity how much food is thrown away
| because it's "not appealing" enough to the eye when we have so
| many in this world who go to bed hungry.
|
| I hope someday there's a society we've managed to build that's
| good enough to look back on the 20th and 21st centuries with
| the judgemental glare we rightly deserve.
| gambiting wrote:
| >>It's a crime against humanity how much food is thrown away
|
| How much of it is actually thrown away though? It's my
| understanding that the "ugly" looking vegetables are just
| used to make sauces, canned produce, ready meals etc etc. No
| one is throwing out perfectly good tomatoes just because they
| are ugly - they just get turned into something else.
| Kluggy wrote:
| Or made into chips https://www.ugliessnacks.com
| soco wrote:
| If they are redirected at the producer, for sure. But if
| they are labeled as ugly, or expired, only when they are on
| the shelves, I'm not that sure anymore. So I don't know how
| much is each share - recycled vs thrown away... and again,
| what does "thrown away" mean? Vegetables landing in compost
| are thrown away?
| gambiting wrote:
| Produce almost never gets sent to shops "as is" straight
| from the field - everything gets sorted into classes, 1st
| class, 2nd class, 3rd class etc......1st class should
| already be perfect and nice and even - that's usually
| what supermarkets buy. There might be an occassional
| "ugly" bunch of stuff that falls through, and I guess yes
| in that case it will probably be thrown out. And yes it's
| also a tragedy that a lot of food at supermarkets gets
| thrown out when unsold. But I'd bet that 99% of "ugly"
| produce never makes it to the shelves in the first place,
| it just gets turned into processed food.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| > because it's "not appealing" enough to the eye when we have
| so many in this world who go to bed hungry.
|
| Throwing or not throwing away the food would make no
| difference in the lives of the people going hungry. The
| people going hungry are going hungry not because of a dearth
| of food, but due to issues such as war or political or family
| instability.
| mnw21cam wrote:
| There's a pretty major problem with economics. If the food
| that is grown and is currently thrown away wasn't thrown
| away, then it would be effectively be available for a lower
| price than mainstream food. If this were taken to its
| logical conclusion, then allowing this food to be given to
| hungry people lowers the demand for the full-price food,
| leading to a reduction in price of that food, causing the
| people growing it to be unable to make ends meet. It is
| necessary for the production of food to continue to throw
| away the food that isn't bought, otherwise the people
| producing the food will go bankrupt and stop producing
| food.
|
| The above sounds very harsh. Obviously there are some
| schemes that allow excess food to be used by poorer people,
| like food banks, quality tiers, common agricultural policy
| type schemes, or just ensuring everyone has sufficient
| income through tax breaks or benefit schemes. Food banks
| give food away for free, and they are very limited in
| scope, and therefore have a limited affect on food price.
| Quality tiers are things like a supermarket selling "wonky
| veg" next to full-price veg, but you'll tend to notice that
| the wonky veg isn't actually much lower in price than the
| full-price veg. The EU's old common agricultural policy
| scheme effectively solved the problem by getting the
| government to guarantee that a food grower _could_ sell
| their food for a viable price, but it led to huge
| complaints about "butter mountains" and waste - I think
| the point was missed that this waste was a reasonable
| trade-off for ensuring that food continued to be produced
| in sufficient quantities even in a bad year, and the fact
| that the government bought the excess meant that they owned
| it and _could_ if they wanted to feed the hungry with it.
| Tax breaks and benefit schemes solve the problem without
| lowering the price of the food because the food seller
| still gets paid full price for the food.
|
| My point is that good intentions have generated schemes to
| get excess food to hungry people, but they necessarily have
| to be small in scale to avoid negatively affecting
| economics.
| badpun wrote:
| People who are hungry obviously can't afford the food, so
| giving them free food does not withdraw them from the
| food market, as they weren't on it already. Consequently,
| the overall demand for food does not fall.
| pxx wrote:
| This is a myth invented by some food delivery startups. As
| mentioned in sibling comments, this produce is often used in
| alternative streams. https://www.vox.com/the-
| goods/2019/2/26/18240399/food-waste-...
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| I'm open to being corrected but this article doesn't offer
| much for proof of what this person is claiming. It starts
| by reaffirming ~161 billion in waste (in 2008) (termed: not
| eaten) and citing some of the cause of that as cosmetic
| defects. Then the interviewed person goes on to say it's
| used in alternative production as mentioned in the other
| comments, but offers no proof or statistics of this. And
| the fact that enough ugly food existed to fill the purchase
| orders of a number of startups going out of their way to
| sell it kind of implies if they weren't, it would be going
| in the trash.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| > And the fact that enough ugly food existed to fill the
| purchase orders of a number of startups going out of
| their way to sell it kind of implies if they weren't, it
| would be going in the trash.
|
| In the same way that a sudden interest in therapy for
| dogs would prove that dogs were suffering from a mental
| health crisis. Yeah, you want to sell produce at a
| _premium_ so that somewhat well-off people can feel like
| they are making a difference? Sounds good to me, yup yup.
| I mean the vagaries and arbitrariness of upper /upper-
| middle class social signaling is a trope in itself.
| WrongAssumption wrote:
| No, it implies they were willing to pay more than the
| alternative user. Makes sense, a retail customer will
| always pay more for a tomato than a canning factory.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| > It's a crime against humanity how much food is thrown away
| because it's "not appealing" enough to the eye when we have
| so many in this world who go to bed hungry.
|
| Evidence for this? Any at all? Because I can't imagine
| someone getting caught in the act of frowning in disgust
| which then immediately causes a shop owner to toss out that
| and similar-looking produce in the hopes that no one else
| will be disgusted. And how you would cook up such a causal
| connection is beyond me.
|
| What actually happens--and which just trivially follows from
| good old "economics"--is that perfectly good food is thrown
| out because you make more money by eliminating supply that
| can't be sold. (Maybe also food regulations, I don't know.)
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| > Evidence for this? Any at all? Because I can't imagine
| someone getting caught in the act of frowning in disgust
| which then immediately causes a shop owner to toss out that
| and similar-looking produce in the hopes that no one else
| will be disgusted. And how you would cook up such a causal
| connection is beyond me.
|
| Yeah that'd be pretty crazy, probably why that's not what
| happens. It's far likelier that the produce is filtered on
| the farm before it even gets to a supplier.
|
| https://econreview.berkeley.edu/the-good-the-bad-and-the-
| ugl...
|
| > What actually happens--and which just trivially follows
| from good old "economics"--is that perfectly good food is
| thrown out because you make more money by eliminating
| supply that can't be sold. (Maybe also food regulations, I
| don't know.)
|
| I think that's more why they lock the dumpsters behind
| grocery stores and/or dump bleach on the food, but that's
| also disgusting, so, lateral move I think.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| I got worried when I saw the UC Berkeley link. But turns
| out it is not about research--it's an opinion piece on
| the "Ugly Food MOVEMENT" (God...). Which is fronted by,
| yeah, you guessed it, some scrappy startups who are
| asserting that there is a market failure[1] and that they
| can amend it. Then there is a link to some concrete
| numbers which links to a Hill article. Which is a puff
| piece for one of these startups--the cause of the food
| waste is just asserted in the first paragraph.[2]
|
| Then there's the crucial farmer link. Which is just some
| loose "farmers we've talked to, like X" (one step above
| "people are saying") and a link to a human interest or
| whatever you call those uninteresting subject-driven _The
| New Yorker_ articles.
|
| I don't know how people are in the USA (spoiler alert),
| but where I am from food is the everyday grocery product
| that people are most stingy about.[3] Lower prices are
| always good. So it seems bewildering that the consumer
| would send such signals to the Market--surely this would
| cause higher prices for the consumer? Not only that but
| here (like in America) there are farmer subsidies. Payed
| for by tax payers which are also consumers.
|
| (And Americans care about food aestehetics _that much_?
| Well let's look to the article again: "Psychologists
| argued that the lack of public interest in ugly food was
| connected to self-esteem." What the fuck? Seriously?)
|
| Not to mention inflation which makes such everyday
| products more expensive. Which everyone who cares about
| Economics on this site seems to be tearing their hair out
| over on a weekly basis.
|
| The article talks about how these noble startups are
| enabling ugly produce to be sold to smoothie retailers or
| whatever. Or juice factories... like the Market is so
| catastrophically mismanaged that you need a hipster
| startup for _that_? To connect that an orange shaped like
| Steve Buscemi doesn't taste bad as juice?
|
| I am not being negative about the _article_ by the way.
| Just the Movement. The article raises the question
| several times about whether this is really A Thing or if
| it is an astroturf, someone trying to make a buck on real
| climate change and environmental issues. Just look at
| penultimate paragraph.
|
| > The ugly produce movement exemplifies the twenty-first
| century consumer's reliance on social media to navigate
| lifestyle changes. Food waste isn't a simple problem;
| it's an example of the broken agricultural system's
| inability to distribute resources in a way that benefits
| all consumers. If individuals really want to be part of
| the solution, they have to look beyond the glitzy
| marketing of 'socially responsible' firms and become more
| vigilant of companies that claim to have an answer for
| everything.
|
| Would you look at that.
|
| A somewhat funny part is where they describe how the
| customers of these things are higher-income because it is
| more expensive. So the Market is so screwed up that "ugly
| food" isn't something that the poor buy out of practical
| necessity? It's been relegated to social indulgences-
| buying upper-middle class uh, people?
|
| All in all this damning evidence that you have presented
| here demonstrates to me that The Ugly Food Movement is a
| silly, boutique food practice that some I Want To Make a
| New Consumer Need marketing firm cooked up, some startups
| made A Thing, and that upper-middle class water cooler
| NPCs are probably now doing the good work of spreading
| the word about.
|
| [1] Because if this was about consumer choice, according
| to these startups, what difference would a new kind of
| company make?
|
| [2] "One innovative company called [Redacted], based in
| [Hipsterville, USA]"
|
| [3] Just imagine if people were given the chance to buy
| almost-expired or some other such ugly food... and _of
| course_ they are and people love it. Why the heck do you
| need a _startup_ for that?
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| You have gone on like... three different wild tangents
| here, none of which contradict anything I've said.
|
| My point was never that startups are helping yuppies save
| the world by getting yuppies to buy ugly food. My point
| was, that food being deemed as below standard and thrown
| out, in _any amount,_ is disgusting in a world that still
| has food-insecure people in it. That 's it. I don't give
| a shit about these startups. If it is true what they say
| that they are indeed bridging a gap between food that
| would otherwise be discarded and well-meaning people who
| want to change how they consume in such a way that's
| slightly more beneficial to the world, then more power to
| them. That's a good thing, IMO. But it is also a band-aid
| solution to the larger problems of the logistics of food
| production and distribution, and if anything, it's an
| extension of one of the bigger problems in itself: that
| food is not grown, shipped, and sold to _feed people,_ it
| is done _to make money_ and therefore, if a given group
| of people exists that it is not profitable to sell food
| to, they will not be fed. That, to me, is disgusting.
|
| The rest of this is a lot of waffle about how stupid
| Americans are and I'm just not interested in that as a
| topic.
|
| Edit: Yeah I just saw your other comment and it's clear
| you're just here with an axe to grind about people you
| perceive to be richer than yourself, and, I dunno man,
| maybe that's important, but to me it's boring. Go find
| someone else to grind it with.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| > You have gone on like... three different wild tangents
| here, none of which contradict anything I've said.
|
| You posted an article, I responded to it. Standard fare.
| ip26 wrote:
| In different terms, think about when you go shopping. Do
| you take only the prettiest apples? Personally, I will take
| about any apple that doesn't have soft spots, damage, or
| mold.
|
| (Before you argue damage is cosmetic, a significant break
| in the skin molds quickly)
| avgcorrection wrote:
| Exactly. In fact around these parts, the more natural-
| looking, y'know local region grown apples are more
| popular. That's what people are looking for. Not the
| bright red, big, more perfect apple-shaped ones with a
| kind of polished glean to them which were probably
| imported from abroad. People want those smaller red-and-
| green(-and-yellow) ones. (But they're too sour for my
| taste.)
| daveoc64 wrote:
| In the UK, most of the supermarkets now sell "wonky" fruit
| and veg - it may look less appealing, but it's safe to eat
| and cheaper.
| mcv wrote:
| Uniformity and standardisation are a plague. Years ago there
| was an article here describing how Switzerland destroyed much
| of its rich cheese heritage because a powerful cheese lobby
| wanted everybody to standardise on Emmentaler and Gruyere.
| soco wrote:
| I can only say I cannot notice this destruction. I can count
| about 20 types of cheese in my Swiss fridge right now (ok not
| all Swiss) and none is Emmentaler or Gruyere. In my village
| we have a cheese shop with about 200 sorts, and every chain
| offers a few dozens at the minimum. Again, not all Swiss, but
| plenty enough types some of them even regional. So if there
| was any push on standardizing, I would say it largely failed.
| But I'll definitely search for that article/initiative, I'm
| very curious now.
| mcv wrote:
| I've also encountered plenty of other cheeses in
| Switzerland, so it certainly wasn't absolute, but it did
| happen. I can't find the original article anymore, but
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Cheese_Union also
| mentions it. In short, the Cheese Union insisted on
| focusing on these two cheeses. This ended in 1999, so
| seeing more cheese now is to be expected, but even in the
| 1980s, there were absolutely other cheeses available.
| However, that doesn't mean that variety wasn't way down.
|
| Too bad I can't find that original article, which went into
| a lot more detail than Wikipedia.
| tejohnso wrote:
| > I can count about 20 types of cheese in my Swiss fridge
| right now
|
| Are you some kind of cheese nerd, or is this not all that
| unusual for a Swiss fridge?
| ericd wrote:
| It's pretty common in France, at least, to have a pretty
| solid collection of cheeses like that. Really glad the US
| has been getting better in terms of options.
| prmoustache wrote:
| I will say 20 is a lot but it is not uncommom to have a
| lot of different cheese.
|
| First swiss often do fondue with 2 different cheeses, the
| usual moitie-moitie mix of Vacherin fribourgeois and
| Gruyere. Then sometimes you have 2 to 3 different
| raclette cheeses because you like different tastes. Then
| there are the cheese you might grate on your pastas (in
| my case I would usually use italian cheeses) and the
| different cheese you want to offer at the table in
| regular diners + the ones dedicated for the aperitives
| like Tete de Moine...It can add up quickly without being
| a nerd.
| mcv wrote:
| Vacherin fribourgeois? I thought the standard was to use
| Emmentaler with Gruyere.
|
| Of course you can fondue with any kind of cheese. I love
| using Dutch farmer's cheese in my fondue. In fact, my
| brother-in-law has recently started making cheese which
| is very suitable for it.
|
| I'm Dutch, and I don't have 20 cheeses, but 5 different
| cheeses is very common, and more than 10 is not rare for
| us.
| com2kid wrote:
| > I can count about 20 types of cheese in my Swiss fridge
| right now
|
| Maybe a stupid question, but how can you remember all those
| different types of cheeses and what they taste like? I'd
| have to have an extensive notebook every time I went to the
| store if I wanted to manage 20 types of cheese.
|
| (My typical fancy cheese buying system is to go to the
| store and buy something at random and hope I like it, which
| since I like cheese, often works out, but it means buying
| it again can be almost impossible)
| Loic wrote:
| You know at least 20 songs, from the Beatles to ABBA or
| Eminem. This is part of your culture because you heard
| them over and over.
|
| We do the same but with cheeses.
| throwup238 wrote:
| That's what we're missing in America - branded cheeses!
|
| ABBA's _Goudas Just Wanna Have Fun_ and Eminem's _The
| Real Slim Cheddy_ from 3Mile. Beatle's _Let it Brie_!
| kjs3 wrote:
| I'm an idiot American and I can definitely remember and
| describe 20 different kinds of cheese. It's pretty easy
| to remember if you think in groups based on use: there's
| a couple of soft cheeses I like with fruit, a couple more
| that are good on top of pasta, a couple that are good on
| sammiches, a couple more to make creamy sauces, and a
| bunch that I just like to eat. You can get to 20 real
| fast, tho admittedly being someone who cooks makes it a
| lot easier to keep straight. If everything you eat comes
| from the freezer or Doordash, maybe not so much.
| serial_dev wrote:
| You can develop and improve your appreciation for cheese,
| you don't need to be born in France or Switzerland for
| that.
|
| I'm not from one of the big cheese nations of Europe,
| when I grew up we had one kind of cheese for everything,
| but a couple of years ago I tried to broaden my palette,
| buy everything I could in local shops and supermarkets,
| and remembering twenty different kinds of cheese is not
| difficult.
|
| What also helps is that these cheeses are significantly
| different, so Emmentaler, Camembert, Parmigiano Reggiano,
| Mozzarella, Bavarian Blu, Manchego, Pecorino, Gouda,
| Feta, etc, they all are very different, and most
| supermarkets in Europe have them all, so you can try out
| things easily.
| timcobb wrote:
| I was in Paris this past summer for the first time in a long
| time. In fact, it was my first time out of the US in a long
| time. I was stunned/disappointed by the fact that even in high-
| end produce stores, all the apple varieties were pretty much
| _exactly_ the same ones we have in the US. Gala, Fuji, Red
| Delicious, Golden, Granny Smith, etc., the familiar line-up.
| The whole time I was in Paris, I did not encounter an
| unconventional apple type, and I went to many produce and
| grocery stores during my time there. I assumed that produce
| monoculture wouldn 't have hit France as hard as it's hit the
| US... but no, it seemed just as bad there.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| In most of france produce markets are where you'd go for
| this, but you're rigidly tied to the seasonal production. So
| you can get all kinds of apples! In september and october.
| And no apples at any other time.
|
| I'm not sure this applies in paris though, I suspect it does
| not. It's such a big city it's likely the markets are similar
| to american ones, being targeted & priced at affluent upper
| middle class professionals. IDK though I have spent very
| little time in paris.
| timcobb wrote:
| Where could I find this in France?
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| Towns and small cities will just have a permanent
| structure for it, usually in or near the city center.
| It'll say "marche" or "les halles" on it, once you know
| what to look for they're easy to spot. The market is
| normally a couple times a week, early morning hours, in
| some places it will be over by 9, but in the summer
| vendors will be leaving even before that. Very small
| towns will just do it in the central square in front of
| the city hall or prominent church. Big cities will have
| one huge covered market somewhere that runs daily, and
| then smaller ones spread around different squares on
| other days.
|
| Again idk about paris. Lived in france for many years and
| still back regularly for family. But spent maybe a week
| total in paris, and even that was over a decade ago.
| jfengel wrote:
| I can't speak to the grocery stores, but I did briefly work
| on an apple farm in Calvados. They had two dozen different
| kinds of apples, not one of which I'd ever heard of.
|
| (I did once get a very lame baguette at a Monoprix once. Blew
| my mind that the French tolerated it.)
|
| One possibility is that you were there out of season. We've
| gotten very good at preserving apples for all year, but they
| are harvested only for a month or so. It takes industrial
| climate control to make them taste good after about December.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| I understand that this probably refers to a French grocery
| store of some sort, but I can't get the image out of my
| head of you ordering a baguette off of the localized French
| version of https://www.monoprice.com/.
| kansface wrote:
| > Calvados
|
| As in, where the brandy comes from? I never knew it was
| eponymous. Booze is of course the original technology for
| preserving apples and fruit in general. My understanding is
| that was the original intended purpose for our older
| orchards included those planted by Johnny Appleseed.
| prmoustache wrote:
| The calvados beverage is not only made in the Calvados
| departement. There are 3 different appelations: - regular
| calvados made from cider from different parts of Normandy
| - calvados Pays d'Auge which must be made from cider of
| that eponymous Pays d'Auge area (which is within the
| Calvados departement) - calvados du Domfrontais which is
| made from cider of the Domfront area in the Orne
| departement.
| dminor wrote:
| Since he didn't graft, the fruit from the trees he
| planted would have mostly been unpleasant to eat. But
| still fit to ferment alcohol from, or feed to livestock.
| zer00eyz wrote:
| Apples are a poor choice to look at, because much like
| avocados they are all grown from cuttings and grafts.
|
| Apples are also an odd fruit because they can be kept for
| such a long time: https://www.foodrenegade.com/your-apples-
| year-old/ this makes shipping them anywhere much easier than
| a tomato...
| timcobb wrote:
| Why does being grown from cuttings and grafts make them a
| poor choice to look at? Wouldn't there be local varieties
| with different flavors that people would want to consume.
| You can cut and graft those just the same? It seems they
| optimized for the varieties that are easier to ship and
| preserve.
| bsder wrote:
| Why would you assume that France has a diversity of
| _apples_? (they may--but I wouldn 't automatically expect
| it)
|
| Johnny Appleseed is American. The US has a _huge_
| diversity of apple trees based on locality.
|
| However, like so many things, said diversity is
| _seasonal_. There is a good reason for pressing apple
| cider--you need to do _something_ with the enormous
| number of apples you couldn 't eat directly.
|
| If you want apples out of season, you're only going to
| see the mass-manufactured ones.
| nasmorn wrote:
| Very true. In Austria you can still get a lot of heritage
| apples but mostly in the fall. Some varieties don't keep
| well at all.
| noSyncCloud wrote:
| What does Jonny Appleseed have to do with anything?
| Apples are native to central Asia, not the Americas.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple?wprov=sfla1
| bsder wrote:
| The point is that Johnny Appleseed _actively spread_
| apple cultivars over a very wide geographic area
| (Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and parts of West
| Virgina and Ontario).
|
| Since these cultivars were no longer connected by
| breeding, they changed characteristics over several
| centuries giving rise to an absolutely enormous diversity
| of local apple types in the US--especially since apple
| trees from seed are kinda unstable genetically.
| WrongAssumption wrote:
| How is where they are native to relevant prevalence and
| diversity?
| zer00eyz wrote:
| For the same reason we have 1 banana and mostly only see
| hass avocados.
|
| IF you take the seeds of a tomato you will get a mostly
| decent tomato out of it. IF you take the seeds of an
| apple or a haas avocado you will likely get something
| that looks nothing like its parent. Unlike tomatoes it
| takes a LONG time to grow a tree, so if you want an
| avocado or apple orchard your going to use grafts to make
| sure you get the best chance of having a good product in
| 5 or 10 years...
|
| The economics of commonality should be readily
| apparent... pick something that you know works for your
| multi year bet to pay off sounds like a good plan.
|
| Avocados are also interesting because we DO get other
| varieties due to how it reproduces (you need plants of
| both sexes). IM fairly sure that apples do not have this
| issue so farms are monocultures.
|
| Add on to that the fact that the varieties we see are
| designed to be kept long enough to have a birthday and
| this is what you get.
| subpixel wrote:
| How they are grown has nothing to do with what varieties
| are grown and sold. Apples are in fact a great example of
| fruit that has hundreds of centuries-old varieties that are
| no longer traded commercially bc of homogenization of
| consumer taste.
| Quarrel wrote:
| It is a little more complicated for apples because apple
| seeds do not breed true. You get random crabapples on
| average, if you plant apple seeds, so all commercial
| apples are grafted. At least apples aren't in the same
| deadend that bananas are in..
|
| ie, most of the time they won't be sweet eating apples-
| in the US in particular this used to be less of a
| problem, because apples were for cider / alcohol. During
| prohibition entrepreneurs got active in trying to save
| their industry (while others were just ploughing orchards
| over) and we get modern ideas like "an apple a day" and
| the whole modern sweet eating apple became very
| mainstream. Not that eating apples weren't a thing before
| that, but it helped explode their popularity in modern
| western eating habits.
| currymj wrote:
| in the US, especially at "organic" grocery stores such as
| Whole Foods, you can typically get various weird apple
| cultivars -- although usually newly-developed rather than
| traditional. worth checking out if you like apples.
| timcobb wrote:
| I've never noticed interesting apple cultivars in places
| like Whole Foods. I've noticed apples that had different
| names, but looked and tasted like Gala apples :).
| InSteady wrote:
| Depending on your region, worth checking your local
| farmer's markets, food coops, and/or produce markets during
| fall-winter. There are multiple stalls in my town that have
| 15-20 apple varieties, only a few of which are "greatest
| hits" from grocery stores (pink something or other,
| jonagold). I have no doubt there is at least a sprinkling
| of heritage varieties in there.
| Kon-Peki wrote:
| > There are multiple stalls in my town that have 15-20
| apple varieties
|
| I just checked the websites of about half a dozen
| orchards within a reasonable driving distance from me,
| and they all had a range of 30-40 varieties. Not all will
| be ripe at the same time; 15-20 all at once is going to
| be a huge orchard!
| tschwimmer wrote:
| I can't speak to french apple grocery store selection, but I
| wonder if you should maybe go to a different grocery store in
| the US. In my area (SF Bay Area) at the most common grocery
| chain (Safeway) there are probably 8 or so varieties of
| apples on sale and they often rotate. I would say that they
| always have the common ones that you describe (Red Delicious,
| Gala, Fuji, Granny Smith), some less common ones that are
| there 80% of the time (Honeycrisp, Pink Lady) and then some
| more exotic ones that rotate (this time they had two I had
| never tried before - Pazaz [I had to check twice to make sure
| they didn't say Pazuzu] and Sugar Bee). The Sugar Bee's were
| incredible - firm, crispy, juicy and sweet with just a small
| hint of tartness. Beyond just the bulk loose apples, they had
| a bunch of weird apple "products" that were either packaged
| up or sold in a bag. The weirdest ones were apple "bites"
| which were just tiny little apples - no variety specified.
|
| In my experience, the average US grocery store has a vast
| selection of produce and I see the pattern with apples
| (standard base varieties, with some rotating specials) across
| most categories of produce - citrus, cucumbers, peppers, root
| veggies, etc.
|
| So in short, I dunno, I actually feel like there's a massive
| variety of agricultural products in the US. Certainly way
| more than in Switzerland, the country in which I've been to
| the grocery store the most outside of the US. Coop has like 3
| kinds of apples, Migros was a bit better and had some
| interesting Kanzi apples which I had not seen in the states.
|
| YMMV -\\_(tsu)_/-
| nicolas_t wrote:
| Wrong season, the best time is really september, october.
| Even in Paris, it should be relatively easy to find Belles de
| boskoop and reine de reinettes which are delicious.
|
| Otherwise, any farmer's market in Britany and Normandie will
| have plenty of interesting apple varieties.
|
| The problem though is that those more unconventional
| cultivars tend to only be available seasonally.
| Solvency wrote:
| In not convinced its consumers refusing to eat varied heritage
| tomatoes. I frequent five different farmers markets and they
| sell like crazy. Most people can be easily conditioned and
| persuaded to but anything. Hence consumerism.
|
| I blame big food corporations for trying to homogenize,
| sterilize, pasteurize, and genericize the
| taste/appearance/chacteristics of food to the equivalent of
| white bread. Society just trudges along with it with extremely
| low awareness as to how much better it can be.
| VoodooJuJu wrote:
| Apples, tomatoes or pork, most people don't buy heritage
| anything because they're fucking poor.
| fgdelcueto wrote:
| I'd love to buy more heirloom tomatoes. The flavor is great.
| The problem is that often they're like 3 USD for a single large
| tomato in my supermarket :(
| kjs3 wrote:
| See if there's a farmers market local to you. Even there they
| aren't (relatively) cheap, but IME _way_ cheaper than the
| supermarket.
| wannabelife wrote:
| This is one of those cons of adapting to modern life so much,
| we forgotten how to pick fruits and vegetables basically. Our
| understanding of whats good is surface level things like what
| looks good or having no clue if food's actually gone bad vs not
| pleasing to the eyes
|
| Its also why ugly food industry took off and companies like
| misfit markets or imperfect foods have billions of dollars in
| business, who've created a market for ugly looking perfectly
| edible food
| 6LLvveMx2koXfwn wrote:
| Who would have thought compromising genetic diversity might lead
| to problems downstream . . .
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| This surely never happened before, that's why artificial banana
| flavourings taste exactly the same as banans we get in stores
| today!
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| Knowing history doesn't let you not repeat it, it just shows
| you the flat circle the vast majority of society runs on,
| making the exact same fucking mistakes over and over again.
| mnw21cam wrote:
| Experience is what allows you to recognise a mistake the
| second time you make it.
| pxx wrote:
| This is a myth. The causal effect does not go that way. There
| is little evidence that artificial banana flavors were
| developed in a way to mimic older cultivars of banana.
| https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20140829-the-secrets-
| of-f...
| Toutouxc wrote:
| The article doesn't really dispel the myth, just shuffles
| the causality around. To me it sounds like it's still true
| that artificial banana tastes different that what we can
| get now.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| > To me it sounds like it's still true that artificial
| banana tastes different that what we can get now.
|
| But that's not whats being claimed. He's rebutting the
| claim (which the original commenter may or may not have
| implied) that artificial banana flavor is like the old
| banana's that dont exist anymore. He, nor anyone here, is
| saying artificial banana tastes like real banana. And if
| someone like that shows up lets get them.
| InSteady wrote:
| I have tasted unusual varietals of banana, mostly from SE
| Asian supermarkets, that taste very close to artificial
| banana when they are super-ripe. I have a sense for it
| too, because artificial banana used to be my favorite
| candy/popsicle flavor as a child. Full disclosure though,
| I probably haven't tasted artificial banana in at least a
| decade.
| Toutouxc wrote:
| That's an interesting detail about the bananas, I've always
| found artificial "banana" flavourings too strong, too
| "artificial" and I vastly prefer the taste of a slightly
| green banana (as you can buy it in Europe). Apparently the
| artificial flavourings are actually closer to what the OG
| bananas tasted like.
| Kluggy wrote:
| I only eat slightly green bananas. They're readily
| available everywhere in the US, so it's not a strictly
| Europe thing.
| Toutouxc wrote:
| Oh, I'm sure it isn't. I just wanted to emphasize that
| I'm in Europe (central) and what they sell as bananas
| here may not be the exact same thing as somewhere where
| you can eat them fresh.
| InSteady wrote:
| Green bananas have a nice balance of resistant starch and
| prebiotic fiber. They're great for your colon!
| lloeki wrote:
| At some point I grew deeply disgusted of the flavour
| because of a chemistry bench experiment in school where we
| made the isoamyl acetate ester, which is basically what
| most would describe as the archetypal banana flavour...
| except that when you have a whole classroom of people doing
| that it gets extremely strong!
|
| Took me close to a decade to enjoy bananas again. I still
| don't like bananas or pears that are too ripe, mostly
| because they become too sugary for my taste, but also
| because of the stronger flavour.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isoamyl_acetate
| Toutouxc wrote:
| > Until the 1950s, Camemberts still had grey, green or in some
| cases orange-tinged moulds on their surface. But the industry was
| not fond of these colours, considering them unappealing
|
| I couldn't help but chuckle. The mouldy cheese industry says
| something is unappealing.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| I don't see anything ironic or not self-aware about this. There
| are molds ranging from benign and non-descript to deadly and
| grotesque looking. I wouldn't expect someone OK with eating the
| former to be OK with any mold on that basis. In fact I would
| expect them to be highly scrutinizing because its fucking mold.
| mnw21cam wrote:
| In other words, having your cheese a predictable colour
| allows you to recognise when something _else_ is growing on
| it.
| toxik wrote:
| What's next, the Scots food-dyeing haggis to look more
| appealing?
| leobg wrote:
| Reminds me of a book I read more than a decade ago. The Culture
| Code. By Clotaire Rapaille. He argued that 'the French Code for
| cheese is ALIVE. The American Code for cheese, on the other hand,
| is DEAD.'
|
| I don't have the book handy, but here is a quote from the web:
|
| > I started working with a French company in America, and they
| were trying to sell French cheese to the Americans. And they
| didn't understand, because in France the cheese is alive, which
| means that you can buy it young, mature or old, and that's why
| you have to read the age of the cheese when you go to buy the
| cheese. So you smell, you touch, you poke. If you need cheese for
| today, you want to buy a mature cheese. If you want cheese for
| next week, you buy a young cheese. And when you buy young cheese
| for next week, you go home, [but] you never put the cheese in the
| refrigerator, because you don't put your cat in the refrigerator.
| It's the same; it's alive. We are very afraid of getting sick
| with cheese.
| carabiner wrote:
| Yes, the US FDA has tight restrictions on unpasteurized milk
| and cheeses, and France does not. Some French cheeses are
| straight up illegal in the US because they're raw and not aged
| long enough i.e. reblochon.
| jandrese wrote:
| If you are wondering, yes, every year a handful of French
| people get hospitalized from eating bad cheese. Usually E.
| Coli contamination.
| psunavy03 wrote:
| . . . which is horrible. I wouldn't wish E. coli on my
| worst enemy.
| umvi wrote:
| I can't tell if this is satire or not since every healthy
| person has probably trillions of e coli in their gut.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Is _this_ satire?
|
| They're clearly not talking about the benign strains.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| Mostly children and elderly people though, and raw cheese
| isn't the lead cause for such contamination, despite
| regulation processed food is quite high as well (with the
| record in recent years going to ... Nestle, who else.
| /r/fucknestle)
| foobarian wrote:
| Ah, I had reblochon in a tartiflette once. Made the whole
| house smell like feet :-)
| carabiner wrote:
| Yeah I didn't really get the appeal of reblochon for that
| reason. Really liked Brie de meaux though. Other cheeses
| that have "barnyard" aroma (manure) have an appeal that
| inscrutable to me.
| d-lisp wrote:
| I only buy old cheese because it is more intense. It is rather
| hard to perform the "affinage" of the cheese without a
| controlled environment (Roquefort is "affine" in natural caves
| in which you have several exits that you can open or close
| depending on the temperature and hygrometry of the caves,
| that's part of the AOP).
|
| I never got sick eating cheese, but that's actually possible
| Salmonella, Listeria, E.Coli, Tick-borne encephalitis virus
| (and you could die from it, in rare occasions).
| forty wrote:
| I like how cheese stubbornly doesn't want to be an industrial
| tasteless odorless crap. Camembert is well known to be mostly
| controlled by industrial, meaning most Camembert even here in
| France are industrial crap (there is a AOP/DPO "Camembert de
| Normandie" which is better and at least forbids pasteurized
| milk).
| JodieBenitez wrote:
| Watch out for: - Jort - Marie Harel
| - Gillot - Moulin de Carel
| hammock wrote:
| Those are good ones? Or bad ones? I believe Marie Harel
| invented camembert
| wazoox wrote:
| Those are good.
| WirelessGigabit wrote:
| Cleanliness is also the cause that there were less and smaller
| holes in Swiss Cheese.
|
| HN-celebrated Tom Scott did a video on it last year:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evV05QeSjAw
| hammock wrote:
| TLDR: milk is produced in closed system now, meaning dust from
| the barn doesn't get in it. They added 1 part per thousand of
| hay dust to the milk, and all the holes came back
| 11235813213455 wrote:
| Most people would call vegetable rotten when they start to
| ferment, but that's just like for cheese, it makes them better
| raw (for peppers, onions, garlic, grapes, etc..)
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| No it's not. There are plenty of small cheese makers with diverse
| biomes.
|
| Nobody expect supermarket cheese to be sustainable.
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