I am a big fan of the cheese in Switzerland, the quality is fantastic and I enjoy shopping at the local producers market here on Saturday.

But I was wondering if anybody knows - in the almost total absence of our cheesey specialist - why there are not more traditional varieties of cheese than just the hard / semi-hard types like Gruyere, Emmenthal, Appenzeller and Mutschli? For a country with such an amazing history of dairy produce - why are there no blue cheeses like Stilton, Roquefort or Gorgonzola or anything to rival Camenbert as a soft cheese (maybe excepting Vacherin)?

What was it about the way the industry developed or consumer preference which meant that there was a relatively tight type of cheese produced to such high quality?

(Maybe I'm just ignorant.....happy to be pointed in the right direction if so)

Because hard cheeses age, store, and transport better.

And here (Ticino), there are soft cheeses, but they don't transport well.

Remember, in the summer, the livestock go up the mountains, and the cheese is made up there, and has to be brought back for sale at the end of the season.

Tom

As they do in France and Italy I assume? So why the difference?

Perhaps the limited number of varieties explains why Switzerland is so well run: I got this quote from Wikipedia while searching for Churchill's well known quote:

Because they're a lot bigger.

Also, French and Italian cheeses made in the Alps are quite similar to Swiss cheeses, the other cheeses come from other areas/terrain.

Tom

French cheese is mostly boring. Discuss.

Can we discuss my thing first please?

But we all know Swiss cheese is *mostly* boring.

What would be interesting is to compare it to something exciting, ever changing and a delight for all to behold, which is of course British Cheese.

Huh?

German cheese is boring, but French?

To quote a famous member here "Put the crack pipe down!"

Tom

But WHY is it?

Because even the Swiss find British Cheese better on so many levels, so it must be true.

But it isn't.

I buy all kinds of soft cheeses, preferable goat, made locally, no problem.

We certainly consume more Swiss cheeses than all others combined, though probably more Parmagiana than any other single type (except perhaps for Raclette).

Tom

The Swiss Cheese Union (defunct), or Schweizerische Kaeseunion, has a lot to answer for in this respect. It was a cartel that would buy and sell milk and cheese in Switzerland at fixed prices and had a monopoly on cheese exports.

It focused on Emmenthaler, Gruyere and Sbrinz (later Appenzeller as well) with the result that if you wanted the fixed price for your milk, it would become one of these cheeses. And no other Swiss cheeses would be exported.

There were, and there have always been, other Swiss cheeses. Coop and Migros now both have a nice selection of "artisanal(ish)" alpine cheeses. But I remember that while the "Kaeseunion" was still alive (until 1999), one of the cheesemakers I knew in Obwalden sold his cheese (Obwaldner Bratchas, very tasty) to hikers in summer, straight from his hut in the high pastures, and in winter, from under the counter at the Melchsee-Frutt cable car baggage counter where he worked in winter. He couldn't sell it in a shop that sold Kaeseunion cheese (ie nearly all of them).

British cheese was never regulated in this way. So local varieties have survived, despite the emergence of cheezy-strings and suchlike garbage.

BTW Kaeseunion also was responsible for this fashion crime (in the 1990s):

Switzerland has at least 13 cheeses, for a country smaller than London or Paris, I think that isn't too bad.

http://www.kaese-schweiz.com/kaesesorten/

Making cheese is an art, but it relies on the bacteria, either natural or purchased from a laboratory, and
tradition rules and we are stuck with having to eat Roquefort or Dorset Blue Vinney.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorset_Blue_Vinney

Why settle for 'not too bad' when you could be great? I think tom_tulpe would agree. But, then, free markets aren't the Swiss way.

There are much more kinds of cheese in Switzerland than listed in that link. In fact every valley traditionally has their own regional specialities. That only a fraction of this are mass-produced (and therefore available outside of their area of production) is due to economics of scale and the necessity of brands for export.

Here are some more Swiss cheeses:
http://www.cheese.ch/index.php?id=15

The Canton of Zürich alone has almost a dozen cheese varieties .....

http://iledefrancecheese.com/index.p...des-dieux.html

Caprice des Dieux

my favourite.... ehmmm

Is your assessment made from purely what you see on the supermarket cold shelves, or have you visited your local käserei. These cheese shops often produce a couple or so of their own cheeses, plus have a variety of local cheeses from small producers.

In my area I can find a locally produced brie, a few different goats and sheep milk cheese and a couple of blue cheeses - one of which (Grangeneuve) is not too dissimilar to Stilton. The other actually is a Migros "de la region" line - "Bleuchatel" - surprisingly-not, a blue cheese from Neuchatel.

Of course, not forgetting the almost runny Tete de Moin.

Did you read the post?

Also - Tete de Moines is a semi hard cheese - its the one which is cut into roses shapes. If yours is runny, suggest you bin it

Anyway.....I think most people missed the point of the post. It wasn't "Can I find some blue cheese in Migros?" it was "why has the cheese producing industry here concentrated on fewer types of cheese than other countries?"