Tuesday, December 23, 2003
Globalisation and Homogenisation
One of the more popular myths surrounding globalisation is that it will somehow lead to a homogenous society. I have often wondered whether folks who make these allegations have ever visited to the melting pots (the most obvious symbol of globalisation) of today -- London, New York etc, or even read about the melting pots of old -- Alexandria, Cochin, Constantinople etc. The one accusation you cannot make against these melting pots is that they are/were somehow homogenous. They are/were anything but. Stephen Evans agrees in this story about varieties of local cheese.
At the click of a mouse, North Americans can order Beer Kaesa cheese from Monroe, Wisconsin (it doesn't actually contain any beer but took its name because it was devised in 1933 to mark the end of prohibition) or Humboldt Fog from California or Vermont Shepherd from New England.
The University of California has just published a history of Camembert, and it does show a relentless move towards uniformity over the last century. Where once individual farms would have produced their own unique strain of the French cheese, invariably using milk from a particular herd, the trend has been to agglomerate production in factories, where the product was standardised, homogenised and pasteurised. Camembert lost its distinctive look and taste and became uniformly pasty white, with scarcely a hint of robustness.
But the good news for cheese-lovers is that distinctive, local Camembert is making a comeback because of the internet. It's expensive, of course, but at least it's there.
The signs are that the internet is doing what its proponents promised it would: creating a truly global market for a huge range of products made all over the world. This, plus the postal service, promises small producers of obscure cheeses - and meats and olives and anchovies and herbs and wines - a return from the brink of oblivion.
At the click of a mouse, North Americans can order Beer Kaesa cheese from Monroe, Wisconsin (it doesn't actually contain any beer but took its name because it was devised in 1933 to mark the end of prohibition) or Humboldt Fog from California or Vermont Shepherd from New England.
The University of California has just published a history of Camembert, and it does show a relentless move towards uniformity over the last century. Where once individual farms would have produced their own unique strain of the French cheese, invariably using milk from a particular herd, the trend has been to agglomerate production in factories, where the product was standardised, homogenised and pasteurised. Camembert lost its distinctive look and taste and became uniformly pasty white, with scarcely a hint of robustness.
But the good news for cheese-lovers is that distinctive, local Camembert is making a comeback because of the internet. It's expensive, of course, but at least it's there.
The signs are that the internet is doing what its proponents promised it would: creating a truly global market for a huge range of products made all over the world. This, plus the postal service, promises small producers of obscure cheeses - and meats and olives and anchovies and herbs and wines - a return from the brink of oblivion.
