A Matter of Taste - The cheese factor

Here I unveil a new photo series that's been tumbling around in my mind for a little while now... A Matter of Taste, or alternatively, You Could Never Sell That in the USA!

Our first photo, and the inspiration for the whole series:



COLOURED FAMILY CHEDDAR


In the U.S., put the words ‘coloured’ and ‘family’ together and you’ve got an African American domestic arrangement. At first glance, it sounds like this cheese is marketed especially to black families, which is just plain silly.

But... it’s more than that. ‘Colored’ (I’m going to spell it the American way) as used to refer to people just ISN’T USED these days, and I think it would be heard as offensive if it were. The word alone conjures up inescapable visions of segregation and Jim Crow laws (think colored drinking fountains, colored lunch counters, colored waiting rooms, etc.).





Segregation was legal, standard practice and widespread, even until the 1960s. There's no forgetting this ugly history.

When I first picked up this cheese, I showed it to Andy, saying ‘Oh my god, look at this, you could never sell this in the U.S.!!’ His reaction was ‘What? What’s the problem?’ Obviously the word doesn’t have the same associations here.

The verdict: There’s nothing wrong with this cheese, it’s just the packaging.

If you wanted to sell this in the U.S., I think it would be called ‘Family-size Cheddar’. The whole ‘colored’ part is moot because ALL cheddar in the U.S. is orange anyway. If you want anything else you go to a froo-froo gourmet natural foods co-op and look for the ‘white cheddar’.

And let's not go into the implications of naming a cheese product Baby Loaf.

Next week: The ‘manly’ factor