Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/11/27/cheesemaking-youtuber-threatened-with-legal-action-by-grana-padano-after-showing-people-how-to-make-similar-cheese.html
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There are scary cheese videos on YouTube.
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Sounds like Rick’s recipe for concentrated dark matter. Make at your own risk.
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And now more people will learn to make it than ever would have bothered.
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So that cheese is so bad a random youtuber is a serious threat to their business? Glad to know.
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I had never heard of this kind of cheese before, so I googled it. On the wiki page, it says:
“About 150 factories make Grana Padano in the Po Valley area, and about 4.5 million cheese are manufactured.” There appears to be some words missing from this sentence.
BTW, for anyone that cares, speaking of Italian cheese, Costco sells the real deal Parmigiano-Reggiano in wedges for a damn good price.
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You could totally make a lookalike cheese, but you have to call it differently.
I know that in the USA seems legit to make a Budweister not in Czech Republic. But in UE if a thing has a geographical designation you can’t sell the thing with that name if made outside that area.
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Yeah, but the thing is that the YouTuber did not claim to be making the authentic cheese, he only said he was making in the style of the geographic designation. He had a very explicit disclaimer at the beginning of his instructional video. The IP enforcement agent ignored the disclaimer and made excessive legal claims.
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there’s only 1 good kind of parm - Vegan Parm. don’t knock it till you try it.
p.s. not vegan! just love vegan parm!
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The recipes are relatively simple to follow. They are also relatively easy to find. But the cheesemaking process is also really easy to screw up. It takes a bit of practice to make more complex cheeses like this one.
While I have made cheese at home from time to time, it would be accurate to say I have failed to make cheese more often.
To think that their industry is somewhat in danger because the recipe is available online is ludicrous. This sounds more like a trade association trying to justify its member dues.
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And now I’m tempted to make some of this cheese, although I’ve not the time nor equipment (or storage space) to do it.
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What brand? Mrs Peas has a dairy allergy and we’re always on the lookout for the good stuff.
Related: We’ve been using a lot of Miyokos butter lately and I used it heavily for Thanksgiving. So far I have been incredibly impressed with how butter-like it is. Many brands just turn greasy or greasy-tasting when baked, used for sauté, etc. Miyokos behaves exactly like butter in everything I’ve tried. It seems to have a slightly lower melting point, but otherwise identical.
Perhaps when the kids all grow up and fly away I’ll try things like this, but I’ve always thought of it like trying to take photos of landmarks like the Eiffel Tower or building my own guitar or similar; hundreds of people have done it far better than I ever could and probably cheaper.
Having said that, I do want to try growing wasabi one day, which is probably a very, very bad idea.
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Cease and desist? No, cheese and desist.
(cheesy humor, I know)
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Gives a whole new meaning to “lactose intolerance.”
Also: cheese is amazing. I have a cheese-expert friend who sometimes lectures about the history and different styles of making cheese, and it’s kind of mind-expanding to hear.
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That certainly seems to be the case. Some friends of mine got into it, and their first two dozen batches were all…awful. They’ve now moved away, but I never saw them make a decent one. We didn’t have the heart to tell them that, of course. These are very meticulous people who generally get all the details right in a project and work hard at things like this. It goes to show that it is difficult, and my own very latent interest in giving this a try was somewhat quashed.
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Miyokos butter is fantastic, and this is it’s only negative. I learned the hard way when I came home to a puddle on my kitchen counter one day this past summer.
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t’m not defending excessive litigation. I’m all for pirates & home-made recipes. But just to explain, for those who don’t know: Italy has extremely strict laws about food authenticity. Each region has its own specialty, made locally, msrked with the seal of TWO agencies, & protected by law. The penalties for fraud are fierce. Italians are rightly proud of their cuisine & agricultural products & don’t want adulterators passing something off as the real thing. Not that this guy is that. But that’s some background for why this might be such a freak-out for the cheesemakers, & why they managed to put their foot in it so badly.
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Blessed are the cheesemakers!
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Is he getting any kind of help, like the EFF or anything?
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