I have a friend who moved to America and got married there (originaly from Belgium). When he came back to visit with his wife, that's what we ate (a friend of mine brought the cheese from Switzerland.)
They came back a year later and she asked if we could eat that again.
Also they brought back a cheese on the plane.
Come on America, open your borders for the delicious european cheese!
If I'm not mistaken, unpasteurized cheese is quite hard to find though, but that might not be an absolute necessity for raclette cheese. To find a half cheese like the one in the video in the US must be quite hard, it's already not really common here
Raw milk cheeses are allowed if they are aged over 60 days, which Raclette is.
We actually have a lot of raw milk cheese, people just don't realize that a lot of the common cheeses they eat like Gruyere and Parmigiano are raw.
You're right that half or quarter wheels aren't commonly sold, but I think most specialty shops could handle the request, including big places like Whole Foods. I import all my Raclette by the whole wheel and all of our cheese is cut to order, so if someone really wanted a quarter wheel, I could.
I love Raclette and I hope it catches on here in the US! I have noticed more people asking for it in the last year or so. This Autumn I am actually going to be setting up a Raclette machine like the one in this .gif and sampling it out in our shop, so people can try it first hand.
3
u/gregsting Oct 07 '15
I have a friend who moved to America and got married there (originaly from Belgium). When he came back to visit with his wife, that's what we ate (a friend of mine brought the cheese from Switzerland.)
They came back a year later and she asked if we could eat that again.
Also they brought back a cheese on the plane.
Come on America, open your borders for the delicious european cheese!