Chalet 1802 - Chamonix-Mont-Blanc

Human beings learn skills from each other by imitation. Mistakes occur, sometimes there are improvements, and thus our skill set and culture evolves. The bigger the connected population the more invention, and the more culture progresses.

Conversely, the smaller the population, the more self sufficient the group, the less is invented. A small grouping of settlers cannot sustain more than a certain number of tools. People can only learn a limited set of skills, and if there are not enough people to learn and pass on that skill then that skill will be lost. Progress can regress.

Or though runs the theory of Matt Ridley in the Rational Optimist. And I think he could be right.

Take Chamonix in the 18th/19th Century, an isolated mountain valley with a small self sufficient population, little trade and a harsh living environment. There weren’t enough peiple to learn and pass on skills so the alpine diet regressed. No gourmet French food back then just the odd marmot, cheese and stale bread.

Without a large enough population the inhabitants of Chamonix weren’t able to have a rich and varied diet. For them the only food set they managed to retain was stale bread and cheese otherwise known as fondue, raclette or croute. Now obviously hailed as regional specialities. What we now know though is that the Chamonix folk had simply forgotten how to cook anything else, and it wasn’t until the ‘discovery’ of Chamonix (by the English) and the opening up of tourism and trade that cuisine, and life in general, began to improve.

Related articles

• Digesting a fondue from the inside out (newscientist.com)
• Fondue: It’s a cheesy Seventies revival (independent.co.uk)

The French consume 25kg of cheese a year, second only to the Greeks. However, there are worrying signs that the land of unpasteurised French cheese is under attack by the plastic wrapped foreign stuff.

Even with the recession French cheese consumption grew. But, to the dismay of gourmets, sales of the classic French cheeses dropped whilst those of the invaders grew. This is partly due to France’s growing love of the pizza (Domino’s saw sales rise by 31% in 2008), and also the sandwich boom in France. Contrary to popular belief most French do not spend two hours over lunch quaffing endless carafes of wine and putting the world to Gallic rectitude. The French spend an average of just 31 minutes on lunch, down from 38 mins in 1975. All of this is not good news for the French cheese maker.

French cheese makers see cheese not just as food, but as a “theme of national importance” and will fight the encroaching wave of plastic packed cheese. And how, you may ask, do they intend to do this? A fair question. Well their line of attack is a line of saucy calenders featuring Miss Geraldine Gruyere as Miss September.