{"id":1263,"date":"2010-12-30T14:48:57","date_gmt":"2010-12-30T19:48:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/?p=1263"},"modified":"2016-04-25T14:34:54","modified_gmt":"2016-04-25T18:34:54","slug":"definition-aoc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/definition-aoc\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s the Definition of AOC?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Q\"<\/a><\/div>\n
What does AOC stand for, and why does it matter?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\"A\"<\/a><\/div>\n
Appellation d’Origine Contr\u00f4l\u00e9e, or AOC, is a French food-labeling term that protects the style, ingredients, and origin of a product. Many of Europe\u2019s oldest food products are protected by similar designations, such as Italy\u2019s DOC (Denominazione di Origine Controllata) and Spain\u2019s DO (Denominaci\u00f3n de Origen).<\/p>\n

So you can appreciate the value of such labels, let me put AOC in context. As a child, I often heard my parents order \u201cRoquefort\u201d dressing on their salads at their favorite restaurant. While I knew then that Roquefort<\/a> was a blue cheese, I had no idea it was a specific AOC-protected blue cheese made exclusively from raw sheep\u2019s milk and aged in the caves of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon in southern France. By the AOC rules, if cheesemakers in northern France want to make Roquefort, they have to move to Roquefort country; otherwise, they must give their blue cheese another name. And therein lies the purpose of AOC—to protect the identity of a long-established artisan food product. In so doing, the AOC rules support the livelihood of the cheesemaker, the farmer, and their community, all of whom have built a reputation over generations of making a particular food.<\/p>\n

Without the AOC protection granted to Roquefort in 1925, we might think it was perfectly appropriate for this cheese to be reproduced with pasteurized cow\u2019s milk in an industrial park in, say, New Jersey. Moreover, because of Roquefort\u2019s stringent AOC laws, there remain today only seven producers of Roquefort, thus ensuring that this great cheese is local, traditional, and true to form. As cheese shoppers, we can be confident that these labels help guarantee consistency and quality in the cheese we choose. Valen\u00e7ay<\/a>, for example, is another AOC cheese that has three essential definitions: it is made from goat\u2019s milk, used raw, with production in a specific province in central France. If you change any of these basic controls (for example, changing the milk from goat\u2019s to sheep\u2019s), the cheese won\u2019t be true, authentic Valen\u00e7ay. An AOC label, then, is a seal of approval you can count on.<\/div>\n

Feature Photo Credit: Cheese Underground<\/a><\/em><\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cheesemonger Ray Bair explains the definition Appellation d’Origine Contr\u00f4l\u00e9e.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10770,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"wprm-recipe-roundup-name":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-description":"","cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"coauthors":[96],"class_list":["post-1263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ask-the-monger"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhat's the Definition of AOC? - culture: the word on cheese<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The definition of AOC (Appellation d'Origine Contr\u00f4l\u00e9e) protection is explained by Cheesemonger Ray Bair\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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