A blog dedicated to urban cheesemaking, cheese tasting and appreciation and all things cheese and dairy related.
Readings: A question of Terroir
Via @NYFarmer, an interesting read in the journal American Anthropologist Volume 112: Locating Value in Artisan Cheese: Reverse Engineering Terroir for New-World Landscapes, by Heather Paxson, Associate Professor of Anthropology at MIT.
ABSTRACT Terroir, the taste of place, is being adapted by artisan cheesemakers in the United States to reveal the range of values—agrarian, environmental, social, and gastronomic—that they believe constitute their cheese and distinguish artisan from commodity production. Some see themselves as reverse engineering terroir cheeses to create place though environmental stewardship and rural economic revitalization. But a tension is produced: while warranting projects of reterritorialization through defetishized food production, terroir marketing may risk turning the concept of “terroir” into a commodity fetish. U.S. terroir talk reveals attempts to reconcile the economic and sociomoral values that producers invest in artisan cheese.
Download the PDF here.
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