Thursday, October 13, 2005
raiders of the lost cheese
Only in Canada... or, should I say, only in Québec! A Quebec firm (a simple cheeseproducer really) was forced to abandon the now infamous "lost cheese" of the Saguenay fjord - CBC News reported that the beleaguered Quebec cheese company that purposefully sank $50,000 worth of cheese (''in an attempt to make it taste better'' - no less) has given up on trying to retrieve its sunken cheesy treasure from the bottom of the... fjord! One full year after it dropped ten barrels containing 900 kilograms of cheese into the cold water of the Saguenay fjord (just north of Quebec City), La Fromagerie Boivin calls it quits - and calls it a MYSTERY! They have no idea where their cheese is! They have no idea what happened to it! Gee... only in Québec indeed!
Maybe -just maybe- Lake Champlain's Champ or Loch Ness's Nessie swam around these parts an decided to treat themselves? After all, according to the Boivin company, letting the cheese sit fifty meters underwater for a time was allegedly going to produce a truly unique-tasting cheese... Alas for Boivin, the lost fromage remains lost - a sunken treasure that has simply vanished! Master divers are baffled and can only confirm the mystery - the cheese is no longer where it was left! It couldn't have swum away... currents are not strong enough to have carried away 900 kg of it just like that... so, what happened to it? Truly, if not Champ and Nessie having dinner together - maybe the fishes took to it?!? Hmm... everyone has heard of catfish, but mousefish... that eats cheese? Hmm...
The thing is, that cheese might just as well remain unfindable - as the CFIA noted (that is the CFIA - not the CIA! The Canadian Food Inspection Agency...) Boivin was breaking food safety laws. His precious cheese cargo, had it been retrieved, was not to be sold through retail outlets anyway for it had not followed the proper scrutiny during its aging process - thorough analysis is required at various stages of said process (hence the appellation ''processed cheese''...? *lol*). Who would have carried out these analyses - mermaids? Cheese smells as it is - however, this novel but illegal aging process forced the CFIA to raise a real stink over it all right... and with good reason! The water is not so cold after all (two degrees Celsius during the salvaging attempst in July) - couldn't that cheese be spoiled already? On top of the questionable aging process, of course... On top of all that, it was submerged in forty meters of polluted waters, surely (nowadays, all bodies of water are...) - logically, couldn't the cheese have become somehow contaminated in there...? And, still, Boivin kept sending divers down during low tide... In his defense, he did have chemical tests planned for the cheese, once it would have been retrieved - just to see how it actually did react to such a long stay underwater... Boivin was even willing to be the guinea pig of service and taste the cheese!
Fact is - Boivin would have been safer there than with ANOTHER product from his dearest company... Seems like some of his company's spreadable processed cheddar cheese could have caused nothing less than botulism (a life-threatening meanie of an illness that is simply unforgiveable; caused by bacteria). Government food inspectors simply issued a recall on that product, immediately dubbed as ''the potentially dodgy cheese'' by the media! The dodgy cheese in question was said to be cunning as well - it would not smell nor look spoiled at all and was, for its part, sold in 400-gram packages bearing the UPC number 6 21879 00750 3... If you have one of those in your fridge, toss it outside asap! Watch your garbage though, so no one comes and eats it! Not the neighborhood skunk... nor the neighbor's cat or man's best friend, the dog... nor Nessie & Champ! *lol*
In light of all this, the annoying (and *nombrilistique* attitude...) Québec cheese makers have is downright - perplexing, judging from the health questions their products raise and all...! That silly commercial they used to air all the time here - about a cheese branded *Le P'tit Québec* and the catch phrase at the end was always the same... ''Y'est juste pour nous autres!'' which means ''this cheese is just for us", true-blue (as in cold) Quebeckers! ''Québécois Pure Laine'' - HA! If this is the quality of it, you can keep it and eat it too - no one else is crazy enough to want to try!
Maybe -just maybe- Lake Champlain's Champ or Loch Ness's Nessie swam around these parts an decided to treat themselves? After all, according to the Boivin company, letting the cheese sit fifty meters underwater for a time was allegedly going to produce a truly unique-tasting cheese... Alas for Boivin, the lost fromage remains lost - a sunken treasure that has simply vanished! Master divers are baffled and can only confirm the mystery - the cheese is no longer where it was left! It couldn't have swum away... currents are not strong enough to have carried away 900 kg of it just like that... so, what happened to it? Truly, if not Champ and Nessie having dinner together - maybe the fishes took to it?!? Hmm... everyone has heard of catfish, but mousefish... that eats cheese? Hmm...
The thing is, that cheese might just as well remain unfindable - as the CFIA noted (that is the CFIA - not the CIA! The Canadian Food Inspection Agency...) Boivin was breaking food safety laws. His precious cheese cargo, had it been retrieved, was not to be sold through retail outlets anyway for it had not followed the proper scrutiny during its aging process - thorough analysis is required at various stages of said process (hence the appellation ''processed cheese''...? *lol*). Who would have carried out these analyses - mermaids? Cheese smells as it is - however, this novel but illegal aging process forced the CFIA to raise a real stink over it all right... and with good reason! The water is not so cold after all (two degrees Celsius during the salvaging attempst in July) - couldn't that cheese be spoiled already? On top of the questionable aging process, of course... On top of all that, it was submerged in forty meters of polluted waters, surely (nowadays, all bodies of water are...) - logically, couldn't the cheese have become somehow contaminated in there...? And, still, Boivin kept sending divers down during low tide... In his defense, he did have chemical tests planned for the cheese, once it would have been retrieved - just to see how it actually did react to such a long stay underwater... Boivin was even willing to be the guinea pig of service and taste the cheese!
Fact is - Boivin would have been safer there than with ANOTHER product from his dearest company... Seems like some of his company's spreadable processed cheddar cheese could have caused nothing less than botulism (a life-threatening meanie of an illness that is simply unforgiveable; caused by bacteria). Government food inspectors simply issued a recall on that product, immediately dubbed as ''the potentially dodgy cheese'' by the media! The dodgy cheese in question was said to be cunning as well - it would not smell nor look spoiled at all and was, for its part, sold in 400-gram packages bearing the UPC number 6 21879 00750 3... If you have one of those in your fridge, toss it outside asap! Watch your garbage though, so no one comes and eats it! Not the neighborhood skunk... nor the neighbor's cat or man's best friend, the dog... nor Nessie & Champ! *lol*
In light of all this, the annoying (and *nombrilistique* attitude...) Québec cheese makers have is downright - perplexing, judging from the health questions their products raise and all...! That silly commercial they used to air all the time here - about a cheese branded *Le P'tit Québec* and the catch phrase at the end was always the same... ''Y'est juste pour nous autres!'' which means ''this cheese is just for us", true-blue (as in cold) Quebeckers! ''Québécois Pure Laine'' - HA! If this is the quality of it, you can keep it and eat it too - no one else is crazy enough to want to try!
Comments:
<< Home
Wow!!! I absolutly love cheese! It is one of the things I just can't give up!!
I will at least try just about any kind of cheese once. That cheese is the scariest cheese I ever have heard of! Surely it must have been Nessy and Champ who ate it!
Don't worry I will never try the "dodgy cheese"!!
This Bovine dude (I mean Boivin) must not get the cheese from his own cows!
Surly he isn't attempting to miik bulls now is he! :O Surly he knows the difference between a cow and a bull! No??
Well then that may be why the cheese went bad! He milked the wrong Bovine!!
Ok enough bad jokes. I think I laugh at myself more than anyone else does! ROFLOL
*looks around for the white coats to appear* Whew, I'm safe for now.
Hay maybe he milked Sea Cows and they decided to go on strike and take back their cheese!
*Sea Cows = Manetees
I will be back to read your wonderful blog!
I gotta go now. No, not to the bathroom silly. I need to go get off the PC so I can get ready to go to my appointment.
I hope you were able to laugh, or at least smile by what I wrote here! ;) I know I did, but I am totaly cwacked up! ROFLOL
What? You didn't, ok repeat after me slowly, but firmly. CHEESE!!! ;)
Ok serious time.
God Bless You Luce!
Have a Wonderful Day!
((HUGE HUGS))
Countess
I will at least try just about any kind of cheese once. That cheese is the scariest cheese I ever have heard of! Surely it must have been Nessy and Champ who ate it!
Don't worry I will never try the "dodgy cheese"!!
This Bovine dude (I mean Boivin) must not get the cheese from his own cows!
Surly he isn't attempting to miik bulls now is he! :O Surly he knows the difference between a cow and a bull! No??
Well then that may be why the cheese went bad! He milked the wrong Bovine!!
Ok enough bad jokes. I think I laugh at myself more than anyone else does! ROFLOL
*looks around for the white coats to appear* Whew, I'm safe for now.
Hay maybe he milked Sea Cows and they decided to go on strike and take back their cheese!
*Sea Cows = Manetees
I will be back to read your wonderful blog!
I gotta go now. No, not to the bathroom silly. I need to go get off the PC so I can get ready to go to my appointment.
I hope you were able to laugh, or at least smile by what I wrote here! ;) I know I did, but I am totaly cwacked up! ROFLOL
What? You didn't, ok repeat after me slowly, but firmly. CHEESE!!! ;)
Ok serious time.
God Bless You Luce!
Have a Wonderful Day!
((HUGE HUGS))
Countess
Sea Cows... Manatees, yes... how come I did not think of making that funny there...? *lol*
Yes - the key word here is CHEESE - indeed!
We all should smile more than we do in life - as a dear friend of mine says; Vita Brevis... life is short... so we should smile a whole lot more!
Post a Comment
Yes - the key word here is CHEESE - indeed!
We all should smile more than we do in life - as a dear friend of mine says; Vita Brevis... life is short... so we should smile a whole lot more!
<< Home