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Food

America, Your Favorite Cheese Is Canadian

Last week at the American Cheese Society's annual competition, a Canadian cheesemaker took home "Best of Show" with a buttery wheel of blue. For shame, America!

For shame, America!

Burn your amber waves of grain to the ground. Your purple mountain majesties are nothing but dunghills of failure.

America, your favorite cheese is Canadian. What hath the True North wrought?

Last week, democracy fell to maple syrup socialist might at the American Cheese Society's annual competition in Providence, Rhode Island, where some decidedly not American cheesemakers were invited to present their wheels.

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Chief among those 'mongers was Ontario's Glengarry Fine Cheese, which took home "Best of Show" for its Celtic Blue Reserve. Its delicate blue veining, buttery aroma, and "not aggressive" flavor (how Canadian!) beat out nearly 1,800 other cheeses for the prize.

Adding nationalist insult to injury, Margaret Peters-Morris of Glengarry proclaimed, "This is not only for me, but for Canada." She was not brandishing a moose horn at the time, but one can imagine.

"This win is very important for the Canadian dairy industry," Peters-Morris continued. "We have the confidence, and we can do this as well as anybody."

The fact that two Wisconsin cheeses (LaClare Farms Specialties Standard Market Cave Aged Chandoka and Roth's Private Reserve by Emmi Roth) tied for second might reassure some that the cheese heartland of America is still strong.

Then again, Canadians beat them—and Celtic Blue wasn't even the only Canadian cheese on offer at the competition.

The Brie Normandie by Quebec's Agropur Fine Cheeses took second place in the Brie category (besting a Wisconsin dairy but losing to one from Marin, California). Fromagerie Bergeon, another Quebeçois cheese outfit, took first place in the "American Made" (!) category for Dutch-style cheese with its Louis Cyr Gouda.

As deserved as Glengarry's win might be—Peters-Morris credited "a lot of sweat and tears … to reach a real pinnacle in our career"—this is a stinky, sad day for our nation's dairymen and women. Consider this a call to arms: Canada might have free healthcare, subsidized higher education, and a higher overall score on the global happiness index than the US, but we can't let them win.