The Land of Cheese and Chocolate: Part I

I was invited to spend Thanksgiving break with my girlfriend and her family at their home in Vevey, Switzerland, a small city about an hour drive east of Geneva.

Food was a very important part of the trip and, Thanksgiving aside, I learned a lot about two of Switzerland's famed food products: cheese and chocolate. I learned a lot about Swiss about wine too, but for some reason I can't seem to recall many of the finer details...

Anyway, Part I will focus on cheese, and Part II will focus on chocolate.

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 My first first meal in Switzerland was a platter of assorted cheeses, dried meats, and bread. I like to think I have some experience when it comes to eating cheese, but these cheeses threw me for a loop. The smells and tastes were unique, almost off-putting, much different than the Swiss cheese we have in the States. They were great though, but I was drawn to a certain orange colored cheese called mimolette:

Mimolette is a hard, sharp tasting cheese that is no allowed to be imported to the United States.
Why is it not allowed? Because the FDA hath decreed that there are too many mites in the rind to be fit for human consumption. Yes, mites, as in little bugs. These bugs are part of the aging process of the cheese, and help give the rind of the cheese a certain texture for which the cheese gets its name.
The FDA want no more than six mites per square inch of the cheese, and they have found 7.5-8 mites on mimolette Story. They are worried about allergens and other potential health effects from the mites, but 6 is such an arbitrary number I think no harm would be done in allowing that extra mite and a half to two mites on the rind.

Next up, the cheese factory: