Will We Soon Have Young Raw Milk Cheese in the U.S?

One among the many great things about visiting France or Italy is the cheese—great variety, vibrant flavors, pungent aromas. Some claim, with justification I think, that European cheese is superior because it is often made from unpasteurized milk. In the U.S., raw milk cheese must be aged 60 days before it can be sold because young, raw milk cheese can harbor bacteria that cause food poisoning.

But the French will have none of this claiming that their centuries of cheese-making shows that young, raw milk cheeses are perfectly safe.

Apparently, scientists are beginning to figure out why the French have been successful a making safe, raw milk cheese:

 In fact, French scientists seem to have figured out the Holy Grail of raw milk cheese: how to make it safer. And a lot of how they do it comes down to how to use good bacteria to battle the bad ones.

Learning those French secrets could help cheesemakers in the Anglophone world make safer and more delicious cheese, says Bronwen Percival, a cheese buyer with Neal’s Yard Dairy in London. So she’s spearheading a Kickstarter effort to raise about $20,000 to translate a technical French government manual on cheese microbiology into English.

And the feds are apparently taking an interest:

But following a regulatory flap over bacteria growing on the wooden boards cheese has traditionally aged on, Dutton, Percival and others say there’s a renewed U.S. government interest in opening a dialogue about how microbial colonies in cheese function. “I felt like it was a positive shift in the discussion,” Dutton says.

I wish they would hurry–I’m craving a good made-this-morning, raw-milk bufala mozzarella.