It was brought to my attention today that Canada has some kind of cheese importation quota. Â I’ll give it a moment for that to sink in. Â There is a limit (according to my sources) to the amount of cheese that may be brought into our country from outside. Â I am of the firm opinion that the Canadian Dairy Lobbyists have simply gone too far.
I picture the Canadian Cheese Board as acting much like the CRTC and prescribing Canadian Content rules for the cheeses available to the common consumer. Â They sit at a board room table in Tavistock (the cheese capital of Ontario likely, Canada possibly and certainly of Tavistock) and make the hard calls. Â How high a percentage of Gouda? Â What of Edam? Â These pedestrian Dutch varieties occupy little time in the counsels of the great and curdy. Â Tyrolean Grey Cheese may be big this year. Â I hear that El Salvadorian Cuajada or Enredo might be an up-and-comer to say nothing of Australian Coon (the Swiss, Italians and British, by the by, each have their own wiki article on national cheeses because they are just too good for the ‘cheeses of the world’ page). Â I picture a scene of portly gentlemen, each with a snifter of brandy and a wedge of Camembert discussing whether or not to lift the ban on Buxton Blue or let it continue for a record-setting thirtieth year in a row. Â Discussions of great heft and import.
It is time to rise up and take these powerful cheesemongers to task. Â Too long have they controlled the quota, importing vast quantities of what they feel is best for the uncountable ranks of cheeserists all over the country. Â Their stated purpose is to protect the public but what they really want is the full wheel, no longer content with a wedge here or there. Â There is no room in their Emmenthaler world for an independent and so I have decided to go renegade. Â I will become a cheese smuggler, like my great-great-great-granduncle Phineas “Do You Smell That” Sandiford. Â He was the prototypical cheese mule, bringing boatloads of Raclette from the shores of Geneva to the shores of York (now Toronto). Â The equipment of the cheese mule has matured with time and is now nearly indistinguishable from that of the heroin or cocaine mule save that our precious cargo can be consumed more or less without permanent incident or damage should we be discovered (there is a tendency toward heart attacks and constipation but these are merely obstacles on the way to cheese smuggling greatness).
We can be distinguished by our cry of “Awk awk awk whaharammm” which, broadly translated from the original Greek means “hey, buddy, I’ve got a lump of Feta that’s been in a bag up my butt for 40 hours, you want some?”  It is also the battle cry of the discovered cheeserist when the bomb or drug sniffing dogs get too close and he is forced to commit the dishonourable practice  of Gruyerery (the aforementioned consumption of the cargo, formerly performed in one’s cabin at sea but now often in lightly traveled airport concourses).