Actually, Jay, Ramesh, my book has a small section on the politics of cheese. You’d be surprised at how many Continental dinner parties the general tastelessness of American cheese comes up as evidence of the pointlessness of U.S. federalism: as one Frenchman put it to me, at least in Europe they have the fédéralisme du fromage, whereby every ten miles you’ll come across a different unpasteurized cheese. Whereas USDA has successfully imposed ruthless centralized cheese homogeneity from Maine to Hawaii. I often think that the bizarre mutations that are now a routine feature of American life (caramel-eggnog-Monterey Jack-zebra mussel macchiato, for a limited time only!) have only come about because USDA has all but completely regulated the taste out of any individual item.

I could go on, but I hope that when this new Contract with America is finalized there’s something about cheese decentralization in there.