[chris_va]

> Properly formed eyes are a mark of quality.

Except when I asked someone who makes cheese in Switzerland, they told me almost the opposite (and mostly that they export the junk cheese to the US and keep the good stuff).

As an aside, what are the odds this article was written by AI? It has that feel (minus random bolding and bullet points).

[rootusrootus]

Why on Earth would they intentionally export only their garbage cheese? Then the world will only know them for that.

The holes in modern Emmental cheese are created intentionally. In Switzerland the additive used to create them is forbidden. [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmental_cheese#Natural_holes_...

[JumpCrisscross]

> Why on Earth would they intentionally export only their garbage cheese?

This usually happens when one population is discerning and the other is not.

[rootusrootus]

I don't know what to make of that statement. It is arrogant, at least. Are you trashing just the 340 million people in the US with this comment, or everybody not-Swiss?

[pazimzadeh]

Most Americans aren’t exposed to enough quality foods of certain types at a young age to develop the taste for them.

For example, most Americans think Hershey’s is what chocolate is supposed to taste like, because they grew up with it.

Same with the mushy Chorleywood processed bread and most American “cheese”

[bruce511]

I think this is certainly the root of the misunderstandings in this (and other) spaces.

At the very-local level of course there are exceptions, but generally speaking US food is terrible compared to European food. The US optimizes for volume and cost, Europe leans more towards quality.

Yes, there's a lot of cheap rubbish food in Europe, but those consuming it know it's cheap rubbish.

By contrast, and to your point, most Americans have never experienced really good food, and so it's harder to grasp that their "regular" quality is so low. We don't miss what we've never had.

My local, nothing special, supermarket stocks over 100 species of cheese. I remember going to the US and being confronted either 3 (American, whatever that is, Swiss and Cheddar. Um, which is unlike any cheddar I've ever had. Frankly the biggest difference seemed to be the color (which is artificial).

Think is, you can't describe sailing to someone who has never seen the ocean.

Increased travel, the growth of "American in Europe" YouTube videos, have slowly started permeating though and quality food is starting to appear here and there. But (naturally) its more expensive, so most Americans will be slow to adapt.

[com2kid]

> My local, nothing special, supermarket stocks over 100 species of cheese. I remember going to the US and being confronted either 3 (American, whatever that is, Swiss and Cheddar. Um, which is unlike any cheddar I've ever had. Frankly the biggest difference seemed to be the color (which is artificial).

When was this comparison done?

In the last decade or so American grocery stores have dramatically improved their cheese selections. I don't know if it is 100 different cheeses, but it is pretty darn close. And unusual regional cheeses come in all the time.

[CrimsonCape]

It is increasingly trendy for grocery stores in America to have a "fancy cheese" section because the unit cost (eg dollar-per-ounce) of cheese makes it profitable. I'm guessing Europeans are paying high unit cost too, but don't mind because it's more socially engrained to seek out "quality" foods like fancy cheese.

In the USA, cheese is either a salad topping, a sandwich/burger topping, or a pizza topping, and not much else. I once bought some pecorino romano to make cacio-e-pepe and regret doing that, it's an overhyped dish.

[elzbardico]

I hate Hershey’s with passion.

[dietr1ch]

I, too hate vomit

[Gabriel54]

It's an observation, not a value judgement. Try finding a fresh loaf of bread in the average American suburb.

[cm2012]

American suburbs tend to have excellent bread in middle class neighborhoods or higher. This isn't the 90s.

[Insanity]

Honest question.. where? Most bread seems to be high in additives and promoted as a “healthy food”, like additional vitamines etc.

And even when buying natural bread without these added “benefits”, it often has high levels of sodium (up to like 200mg per slice).

Bread is one of the easiest, most plain things to make, yet finding high quality bread isn’t straightforward in the States. But I do really want to know which shops and which brand you get, I’d love to find good bread lol.

[ericfr11]

Most suburbs have very artificial breads. Best bread would be in NY or DC, with a big population of foreigners ready to pay the price for fresh bread.

[chipsrafferty]

No they don't, lol

The garden variety baguettes in Spain that go for 50 cents are superior to $8 "gourmet, artisanal" bread in the US.

[fragmede]

they said bread, not sugar fluff with a brown outside.

Don't get me wrong, shit's delicious. It's just not what bread should be.

[dietr1ch]

It's arrogant, but have you travelled to Europe? Food is generally a lot better than in the US, and I mean this starting from the ingredients themselves, so it might have some snarky truth to it.

[panick21]

Good cheese is hard to like, and even here we are judgmental. People who buy the cheap Emmentaler from the supermarket vs the more fancy one from the cheese shop. Most American 'swiss cheese is garbage' sorry. Then the 'Mild' here isn't that good.

I would watcher most American literally have never in their live ever seen how 'rezent' Emmentaler is supposed to look. Honestly its hard to get even in Switzerland.

A proper 'rezent' Emmentaler literally has a thick salt crust inside of the holes.

This is typical even in Switzerland, and I wager its better then most 'Swiss' you get in the US:

https://www.migros.ch/en/product/210119408500

But if you want the elite stuff, it looks like this:

https://emmentaler-schaukaeserei.ch/en/shop/produkte/Emmenta...

But to get that, you are going to have to store it a long time, and that reflects in the price. The stuff sold in the US is usually stored much shorter.

[robocat]

> literally has a thick salt crust inside of the holes.

It is hard to take you seriously when you spread misinformation.

  The Calcium lactate crystals are technically a salt, but not what we would commonly refer to as salt (sodium chloride).

Yes, your language might transliterate to salt or salt crystals in English but it is misleading to call them salt in English.

To me this is very obvious when you eat the crystals (they don't taste salty, and they have only a very soft crunch).

[panick21]

Sorry that I called something that is called salt salt. I guess I shouldn't have said 'literally'.

And that doesn't really change any argument I made in my post.

[Magmalgebra]

Standards come from a mixture of culture and attention. The reason SF pizza is so much worse than NY pizza is that SF does not have culture of high quality pizza (I say this as an SF native). Conversely we have higher standards for Sourdough. Seoul has higher standards for Kimchi, you get the idea.

Everywhere is like this to some extent - no people can be an expert in all things.

[JumpCrisscross]

> It is arrogant, at least. Are you trashing just the 340 million people in the US with this comment, or everybody not-Swiss?

You’re parsing discernment as a value judgement. Don’t do that.

New York City has America’s best bagels. This is because OG bagels are best fresh, and making them fresh multiple times a day takes a lot of work. (They stale super fast because gluten is a bastard. Hence toasting.) To pay for that work at a non-ludicrous cost per bagel, you need lots of reliable demand. That really only happens when you have an ecosystem of people who have been eating bagels all their lives made by folks who have been making them similarly.

You don’t find great bagels outside New York (at an affordable price) because the demand isn’t there. Meanwhile, if you haven’t spent time in New York, you probably don’t know (or care about) the difference. Which means you’re unlikely to give excess patronage to anyone who tries to do it right if they try to do it near you. That doesn’t make anyone outside New York who likes their local bagel wrong; it’s just that economies make it very difficult, and frankly pointless, to replicate the New York bagel elsewhere.

If the people in your town will pay extra only for great cheese and the guys across the pond will pay the same price for mediocre and great cheeses, the deck is stacked. (And to be clear, you can find great Swiss cheeses in America. What you can’t is great Swiss wines.)

[pclmulqdq]

I'm not a fan of New York bagels. They're generally too doughy and "white bread" tasting for me. Plenty of places have excellent bagels that are pre-boiled with lye. The lye boiling process is not special. What is unique is the particular taste and texture, and it's just one kind of bagel that you can prefer or not prefer.

Your whole comment below about "discernment" and seeking New York bagels out sounds like a personal preference (bred by familiarity), not actually finding the creme de la creme of bagels.

The same goes for Chicago/New York pizza. It's not special. It's just the pizza you metaphorically grew up with.

[JumpCrisscross]

> The lye boiling process is not special

It’s one element. The result, however, is highly perishable. You can make it last a full day in the counter, but that fucks with the texture.

> it's just one kind of bagel that you can prefer or not prefer

Sure. Same with various cheeses. Or beef.

Kobe beef is predominantly consumed in Japan. A bit makes it out. But you can generally serve someone who hasn’t spent a lot of time in Japan other wagyu and they’ll be happy. You won’t get away with that with a Kobe aficionado, and there are simply more of those in Japan for self-reïnforcing reasons. (I personally like a range of beef, and while Kobe is great, it’s not something I seek out.)

[sunrunner]

> bred by familiarity

Bread by familiarity, surely? Sorry for the awful bun. I mean pun.

[rootusrootus]

I'm definitely not on the same wavelength as you this evening.

> New York City has America’s best bagels

That's a big claim.

You say it's because they are best fresh -- are you saying that the rest of the country does not have anybody who makes fresh bagels? That's what I get from your first comment, but then you moved the goalposts a bit by qualifying "at an affordable price." So maybe other cities in the US do have bagels that are just as good as NYC but they are more expensive?

I see there is one final qualification you've made: "the New York bagel." In that case, obviously NYC has the best New York bagel ;).

[JumpCrisscross]

> are you saying that the rest of the country does not have anybody who makes fresh bagels?

Of the kind that stale in two hours? Yes. It wouldn’t be economical.

> maybe other cities in the US do have bagels that are just as good as NYC but they are more expensive?

Never say never, but I haven’t seen it. I have seen private chefs pull it off. But they basically required a sous chef to deal with the lye and boiling.

> there is one final qualification you've made: "the New York bagel." In that case, obviously NYC has the best New York bagel

Yup :). (I qualified the first reference with OG, btw.)

But I’m going further. You can’t make a New York bagel outside New York without hundreds of customers reliably streaming through the door who will fuck off if you try to take a shortcut.

Other cities have great bagels. (Montrèal.) But they’re not that. That’s what I mean by discernment. Literally, discerning one thing from another. If you’ve eaten New York bagels for a stretch, you can discern them from others. If you like that, you’ll seek it out, rewarding those who do the work and punishing those who dope them with preservatives. That creates symbiosis between the bagel eater and maker.

Same with cheese. Same with barbecue. Or chivitos or chaat or all the other local, perishable yummies that are peculiar in an infuriatingly-tedious way.

[chamomeal]

The American population as a whole is definitely less discerning when it comes to Swiss cheese than the Swiss

[karlgkk]

No? I’d say it’s fair to trash about 300 million of us tbh

[watwut]

Why does "being less discerning" equals "inferior" in your eyes? People from different cultures like different things and care about different things.

[fransje26]

> I don't know what to make of that statement. It is arrogant, at least. Are you trashing just the 340 million people in the US with this comment, or everybody not-Swiss?

Not arrogant, just a fact of life.

In the same way that the average Dutch palate is content with food produce of mediocre quality and taste, and is satisfied with food that would make the average French or Italian wince.

Being discerning about the quality of your food is something you pick-up intuitively from birth. Some cultures have it, others don't.

[uwagar]

tbh for food in general, the farther the product from the source of production, the lower the quality. and lower the diversity too.

[PetitPrince]

Different countries have different tastes (Coca Cola has a different syrup mixture for each countries for instance). There's a YouTube video from a franco-japanese guy who interview a Japanese cheese maker. He was trained by a Swiss person (but in the US, of all places) and softly complained that Japanese palate favored more bland cheese compared to what he experienced.

So it makes sense for a Swiss cheese maker to export a more marketable cheese, which are generally less strong and younger than the local one. Just like there's an export Guinness or Kilkenny that different from one you'd get in Ireland.

Of note: cheese label are strongly protected in Europe; you cannot legally sell an AOP labelled cheese without adhering to strict guideline about the raw material (including geographic provenance) and processing.

[marklubi]

Similar thing with orange juice. The producers add 'flavor packs' to adjust the taste for different regions of the US.

My son and I travel all over the US for various competitions, and there are certain regions where he refuses to get OJ because of the flavor differences.

[MiddleEndian]

I never looked into why, but when I moved from Boston to Seattle, I noticed dairy products (milk, cottage cheese) tasted different in Seattle. Confirmed it again when I moved back to Boston.

[marklubi]

Haven't noticed that one. Oxidation perhaps, or maybe salt in the air based on the locations?

West coast food (particularly oysters) seems to be a little bit more salty/briny.

[PetitPrince]

What you feed your cattle change how their milk taste; where I live there's a noticeable different between summer (where cows graze on alpine meadows) and winter (hay) milk.

[robocat]

Modern America doesn't seem to have much of a culture of cheese.

I've just visited New Orleans, and the selection of cheese available in supermarkets was extremely limited. I recall the same issue from past visits elsewhere in the US. The fist time I visited I was horrified to see fake Bega cheese.

For more choice in New Orleans I would have needed to go to a cheese shop/restaurant chain called the St James Cheese Company (I didn't visit it).

I watched someone cooking a hamburger grab a slice of processed cheese (looked like a standard individual plastic packaged slice to me) and place it on top of the burger to melt (admittedly it turned out fine).

Oh, and all the milk I found in New Orleans was ultra-pasteurised (abominable taste) - I didn't see any standard/HTST pasteurized milk. Apparently shelflife is more important than taste. For comparison, Supermarket milk is pasteurized here in NZ (not ultra except for longlife tetrapack) and unpasteurized milk is available in Christchurch (not at supermarket, I think in a shop in St Martins or from dairy 30km out of Christchurch).

I admit that here in Christchurch for better imported cheeses I need to go to a cheesemonger. At my local supermarket today I didn't buy a yummy local aged gouda (Meyer) because it was USD40/kg : instead I bought 1 double-cream Brie (Mainland), 1 goatsmilk feta (Foodsnob - Bulgarian - cheap on special), and some "smoked flavour" processed cheese slices (Chesdale - plastic but I like it!).

For Emmentaler, the supermarket has "Swiss cheese" which isn't great. They have an imported brand from Germany Emborg Emmentaler Swiss Cheese block 200g NZD9.69 (USD12.7/lb) which you wouldn't buy for its flavour.

[soulofmischief]

To be fair, Louisiana, for all its talk of culinary tradition, really doesn't have a lot to offer in terms of variety, compared to other states that I have lived in.

This state is a backwater shithole that reminds me of a war-torn Eastern European country, even in New Orleans (which to be fair, is quite small) I wouldn't let it be a typical example of the kind of variety you can find in a modern American city.

[PopAlongKid]

>grab a slice of processed cheese (looked like a standard individual plastic packaged slice to me)

Kraft makes a plastic wrapped slice that is "cheese food", however they also make an American cheese slice that is actual cheese. I suspect you saw the latter.

https://www.kraftheinz.com/kraft-deli-deluxe/products/000210...

[schainks]

Same reason why it’s hard to buy a decent Swiss wine: the good stuff makes it into bellies before it gets to the border!

[helicone]

because their garbage cheese is still miles better than what other people make, and there's no cheese market large enough and rich enough to pay them what their top cheese is worth, so its worth more just to keep it for themselves

[rootusrootus]

> there's no cheese market large enough and rich enough to pay them what their top cheese is worth

That sounds like the market expressing the collective opinion that their cheese is not miles better than what other people make.

On a related note, the best seems to be considered Emmentaler AOC, and it does not seem especially difficult to purchase outside of Switzerland.

[eru]

Emmentaler is a fairly common cheese. I would expect the 'best' to be some obscure cheese that neither you nor me have heard of.

I'm quite fond of the Belper Knolle, but even that ain't particularly obscure.

[JumpCrisscross]

> would expect the 'best' to be some obscure cheese that neither you nor me have heard of

…why? Gruyère and Appenzeller are delicious. They’re also well known. My favorite blue in the world is Point Reyes. Controversial when I’m in France. But not some secret undiscovered jewel.

[rootusrootus]

If obscurity is an important factor, there are going to be as many 'best' cheeses as there are people. For this discussion to make any sense we need something of a consensus opinion, for which Emmentaler gets nominated often enough.

[eru]

> because their garbage cheese is still miles better than what other people make, [...]

Some other people, maybe. But not all other people.

[tekno45]

so a tourist will go to switzerland love it and hate it once they're home? very good export business

[com2kid]

That's how I felt about eggs after visiting Japan. American eggs are bland and tasteless in comparison. Backyard eggs are a general exception to that rule.

[enopod_]

As a Swiss, I can assure you that this is false. Most cheese varieties have very strict quality requirements, if they're not met, the cheese may only end up as no-name ground cheese for pizza or something like that. But an Emmentaler, Gruyere, or Sbrinz always has the same quality, no matter if it's exported or for domestic consumption.

[Xmd5a]

As a Frenchman I disagree, cheese is very sensitive to environmental condition, in particular during transport. To eat a good piece of St Nectaire, first go to to St Nectaire (eat the crust too!)

[matttproud]

As an American living in CH, I say send all of the (bland) Emmentaler to the U.S.; I wouldn't miss it! ;-) Inländervorrang for the rest!

[linksnapzz]

I am quite fond of Appenzeller; I presume we're getting the good stuff-the price certainly reflects that!

[fsckboy]

>that they export the junk cheese to the US and keep the good stuff

people who produce and sell stuff follow profit maximization. Colombia sells its best coffee on the export market because there it will command the highest prices. The people who live in wine growing regions (agricultural) do not have the disposable income to afford expensive wines, so they are shipped to cities. Great croissants are sold locally because they don't last long being shipped. It's not more than profit maximization.

[cjs_ac]

Swiss consumers are wealthier than American consumers.

[carlosjobim]

Averages and means are of no significance in this equation. What matters is which market has the most customers who can afford your product.

Luxury goods are sold worldwide even to hell hole countries, because there's people there who can afford them.

[cjs_ac]

We're talking about cheese. To American consumers, this is luxury, imported cheese, only available from specialist retailers. To Swiss consumers, it's everyday cheese sold in ordinary supermarkets.

[carlosjobim]

You missed my first sentence. If there are 9 million Swiss consumers who are potential customers and 40 million Americans who are, then it doesn't matter if the average Swiss is richer than the average American.

Average and means have no significance in this matter. There are more Americans who can afford cheese from Switzerland than there are Swiss people.

[cjs_ac]

Are there sufficiently many Americans shopping in any individual supermarket who are willing to pay for that cheese for it to be worth that supermarket stocking that cheese? Distribution to retailers is not a simple problem in the food industry.

[crote]

In Switzerland, "Swiss cheese" is just cheese. It's only a luxury product in the US because it has to be shipped to a different continent.

So who can afford it? In Switzerland, everyone.

[carlosjobim]

There are more Americans who can afford Swiss cheese than there are Swiss people alive. If you are manufacturing food, then you have to calculate that each human only has one belly.

[baxtr]

What you are describing holds true only if the buyer values the higher quality, which is true for coffee.

But if you can send the cheap stuff and get the same price why not do that and keep the high quality items for the local market?

Southern Europeans export their tasteless tomatoes to Northern Europe because people there don’t value tasty tomatoes that much. So southern Europeans keep the good vegetables for themselves.

[mschuster91]

> Southern Europeans export their tasteless tomatoes to Northern Europe because people there don’t value tasty tomatoes that much. So southern Europeans keep the good vegetables for themselves.

It's the other way around. The problem is that mass-market tomato varieties have been selected and bred for a long shelf life - which led to them losing taste because breeders didn't care about taste, only about durability [1]. And the flavors aren't the only thing that went away, the second breeding focus on yield led to tomatoes that don't have as much sugar any more because there's only so much sugar a single plant can make.

So if you want to ship tomatoes to Nothern European countries that actually last a few days of display time on the shelf before going bad, you'll want to breed varieties with less taste. If you were to ship tasty tomatoes, probably half the shipment would go bad before ever reaching the store.

And that's not just valid for tomatoes, it's valid for all sorts of agricultural products - including meat. You're only going to get the truly good stuff if you go local and pay the surcharge for varieties and breeds that are "less efficient" to grow but yield more flavor.

[1] https://www.science.org/content/article/why-tomatoes-got-bla...

[baxtr]

Ok interesting!

And basically you’re saying the same as I am. If Northern Europeans would value taste enough, they’d be happy to pay double (since 50% of the shipment would go bad as you write).

[mschuster91]

You can't. Tomatoes - no matter what the 24/7/365 availability of tomatoes in supermarkets leads one to believe - are a seasonal fruit so you could only do this around summer anyway, and the price difference to account for large quantities of the shipment going bad would be way too large to compete with growhouse tomatoes. You'd need to establish and tear down supply chains just for the few months of summer, not worth it.

[fsckboy]

>What you are describing holds true only if the buyer values the higher quality, which is true for coffee.

what I describe holds true because I didn't fall into the trap you are trying to dig me out of.

I said: the sellers profit maximize. What you are saying only makes a difference in who they sell to... in order to, as I said, profit maximize.

[crote]

Fun fact: The Netherlands exports tomatoes to Spain and Italy!

Southern European summers have become too hot to grow tomatoes, so during the summer they have to be imported. The native ones are only available during the winter - when they are indeed exported back up as well.

[baxtr]

Interesting! So basically they’re moving large amounts of water back and forth!

[mymacbook]

I don’t think this is true, wherever I’ve traveled the opposite has held - the finest materials are exported which is sad for the locals. Right away Wool stuck out as an example from Peru. I naively thought that going to Peru would guarantee me the finest wool at the best prices. Anyway I’d like to see some data that backs up the claim that junk Swiss cheese is exported to the US market successfully.

[aktuel]

If you believe that price equals quality, the fact that Switzerland is an order of magnitude richer than Peru - and considerably richer than the US - might make all the difference.

[phreeza]

I think perhaps what is going on here is that the most commonly exported variety of cheese exported from Switzerland is Emmentaler, which matches the US taste profile (and has holes), but in Switzerland is considered a rather bland variety compared to e.g. Gruyere or Appenzeller. Maybe that got a bit exaggerated and it was labeled as "junk" cheese somewhere along the chain of communication.

[palata]

"Swiss cheese" is not... a "Swiss" cheese. It's just the name of a cheese, but that cheese does not come from Switzerland.

[JumpCrisscross]

> that cheese does not come from Switzerland

The canton of Bern makes an absolutely excellent Emmantaler. It’s the original Swiss cheese as brought to America by 19th-century Swiss immigrants to Wisconsin.

[mda]

I always found Emmentaler bland and boring compared to many others in Switzerland, I wish the immigrants brought something better.

[palata]

Emmentaler is a cheese originally from Switzerland, though many other countries now make a cheese that they call like that.

"Swiss cheese" is supposed to be similar to Emmentaler (or inspired from it?). But the fact that Swiss Emmentaler counts as Swiss cheese does not mean that Swiss cheese counts as Emmentaler, or is from Switzerland at all.

[kakacik]

I presume you mean Emmental, the term "swiss cheese" doesn't exist or more precisely has no meaning, its like saying "american car" for example, what do you want to discuss with such a vague term.

Switzerland produces up to 1000 varieties of cheese (still nothing compared to what France produces but its a tiny country comparatively), and literally 1 semi famous variety has holes. Its not what most Swiss folks buy most of the time, that would be ie well aged AOP Gruyere or Appenzeller for example (much much better taste experience than even best Emmental can ever produce).

[petesergeant]

> the term "swiss cheese" doesn't exist or more precisely has no meaning

Would you believe Australians call cheddar "tasty cheese"?

[IAmBroom]

> I presume you mean Emmental, the term "swiss cheese" doesn't exist or more precisely has no meaning, its like saying "american car" for example, what do you want to discuss with such a vague term.

Nonsense. Swiss cheese has a particular appearance and taste profile in the US.

If you tried to sell something as "Swiss cheese" that was bright yellow and solid, you'd be laughed at.

[bryanrasmussen]

I have heard that Denmark exports their best pigs and leaves the second best for home. Not sure why that should be any truer than what you heard regarding Switzerland and their strategy, but they seem to represent two differing strategies about how to best profit from strong points, it would be nice to figure if either is the dominant one.

Perhaps we can ask Italy what they do with tomatoes and parmigiano.

[mattclarkdotnet]

In two minds as to your sarcasm level. Anyone who has eaten bacon in Denmark or Raclette in Switzerland or a fresh pasta sauce in Italy could testify that the best stays home

[Maxion]

I am so confused as to why everyone is talking about Switzerland, the country, acting in unison when it comes to exports. That's not really how it works... Some Swiss companies are more export focused, others are more domestically focused. There's no single central agency that goes around the country and grades cheese manufacturers and creameries and forces some to export, and others to sell to local grocery store chains...

[shermantanktop]

You sure about that? Swiss agriculture is tightly controlled.

[bryanrasmussen]

I heard it from a Dane, but obviously your taste buds have allowed you to take a statistically meaningful sampling, that's pretty lucky.

The reason why I might give it some credence is twofold

1. I would suppose travel from point X to point Y might lead to degradation of quality and thus the top quality leaving at X might be passable when arriving at Y.

2. I suppose there are different income levels involved, Danes are pretty parsimonious.

I don't think most of them actually care about having the best, they care about having passable quality which is of course much better than a middle class person will have access to in the U.S, but perhaps they export the best and premium because obviously with a world wide market there would be enough really upper-scale rich buyers to make it worthwhile to do so.

I have to say I don't really care much, but I think there may be scenarios in which a large portion of the best quality of a nation's produce gets exported (obviously not all of it, but a large portion) and am interested in that as how economics works.

As far as anecdotes however, my Italian ex-wife said the best Italian food she ever had was at a fancy restaurant we went to in Prague. I thought it was good but I don't much care past a certain point, so I didn't notice. My favorite was a small restaurant in Vomero that just made the same two dishes all day long and all the workers came to eat there. I like Danish pork, but generally stuff like flæskesteg, which historically was yes, a luxury good, but a luxury good for peasants. So I think probably not the best.

Yes definitely anything I have eaten in Danish or Italian dishes in their homeland was better than what I ate in those culinary traditions in the U.S or England, but I doubt that was because I had a great sampling to choose from and could decide what was what based only on my experience.

[cess11]

Most pork they export to Sweden for sale in supermarkets is awful and sold as the cheapest, worst alternative.

[JumpCrisscross]

> they told me almost the opposite

For Emmantaler? Or cheese in general?

[elzbardico]

Don’t trust everything people tell you