You may have noticed some faux gravity in media outlets of late dealing with cheese. If you’ve been tuned to Olympic coverage, you are forgiven for having missed such rollicking headlines as: “Judge Won’t Give Gruyere the Champagne Treatment.”[i] Or Planet Money’s “cheesy story” on radio trying to decipher a label with a trade
California Enacts a New Law about Olive Oil Labeling
The new year is unfolding, and we are unexpectedly back in our kitchens, or should be, as we minimize socializing in indoor restaurants and bars. A downer, to be sure, but also an opportunity to reflect on some legal issues affecting food and wine. With apologies to those who prefer a classic menu, I’ll be
Dishing on Rice, Geographical Indications and the Holiday Spirit
Just in time for holiday meal prep, we have a legal quandary worthy of debate. Your side dish recipe calls for brown basmati rice bejeweled with cranberries and pomegranates. Sounds alluring. But what exactly is Basmati rice?
The answer, like so many things in law and life, is “it depends.” Cooking websites tell us that
USTR Delivers GI Protections for Cheeses in Time for the Holidays. Or Does It?
A press release from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative in early October heralded the key achievements of the recently concluded U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, intended to replace the vilified NAFTA agreement that dated from the early 1990s. Let’s take a look at what the release said about Geographical Indications:
“The Parties agreed to provide
Geographical Indications are Heating Up in Trade Disputes
It’s hot as the blazes in most of the U.S., Europe and Central America these days. Which makes a watermelon salad with mint and feta cheese sound very appealing, to say the least. But the recipe calls for “real” feta cheese, the salty kind, to offset the sweetness of the melon. Is there more than