Chew on This: The War on Roquefort?

If you ever questioned whether food is, in fact, political, consider this: As a parting shot at European Union regulations on American beef treated with hormones, the Bush Administration placed prohibitively high tariffs on certain European foods imported into the United States. This Washington Post article focuses on Roquefort, that deliciously stinky sheep's milk cheese, to which the Bushies added a 300 percent duty. The tax, announced one week before Obama's inauguration, essentially amounts to a ban on that cheese in America.

This is an increase from the 100 percent tariff tacked on in 1999 after the first beef skirmish led by French farmer Jose Bove. "It's a little bit of a provocation," the head of the Regional Federation of Ewe Raisers' Unions said, perhaps while researching who, exactly, devised the term "cheese-eating surrender monkey."

The article points out that several other products were hit with high duties, including Irish oatmeal, French truffles, foie gras and sparkling water, but none so high as the cheese tariff. Word to the wise: start stockpiling now, if you can find it. Seems likely the Obama administration has some other issues to handle before it circles back to food tariffs.