French kick up stink over American supermarket's clueless cheese map

Soft Camembert cheese

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US supermarket has kicked up a stink in France after producing a map of some of the country's top cheeses but in all the wrong places. Noses were so out of joint that French diplomats even had to step in to defuse tensions.

Whole Foods Market placed the map on a board to drum up interest in its wide selection of renowned cheeses of France, which is proud to make as many "fromages" as there are days in the year.

However, the map of "Cheeses of France" swiftly caused dismay among Gallic expatriates when they discovered just how off the mark it was on the provenance of some of the country's most iconic cheeses.

In one of several howlers, the map showed Camembert as coming from Montpellier in the deep South. In fact, the soft cheese comes from Normandy, northern France, made from the milk of cows that feed on the lush grass of the humid region.

In another casus belli for Gallic cheese lovers, Ossau-Iraty, a sheep's milk cheese from the staunchly patriotic basque country in southwestern France, was positioned in the central Pays de la Loire.

The first Frenchman to raise the alarm was a certain Mikaël, an expatriate based in Washington DC, who took pictures of the faux pas and posted them online with the message: "OMG!!!".


Speaking to the French Huffington Post, he said had stumbled across the map while at the cheese counter in Detroit over the weekend. "I thought it was a local initiative. But when I returned to Washington DC, I found the same poster in my usual store…so I concluded this poster is nationwide," he said.