A cheese-maker in Lyme is organizing the Connecticut Cheese Challenge, hoping to draw attention to efforts by the European Union to limit the use of names like Parmesan, feta and Gorgonzola on cheese made in the U.S.
The EU argues that American-made cheeses are shadows of the original European varieties and cut into sales and identity of European cheeses.
U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on European Affairs, is scheduled to host the cheese challenge on Tuesday at Sankow's Beaver Brook Farm, which started as a dairy farm in 1917.
Participants will taste two cheeses with the same name and attempt to identify which one is from Connecticut.
Murphy recently urged the U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Trade Representative to oppose the EU's initiative, which his office called "absurd" in a news release.
The cheese challenge begins at 2:45 p.m. and it’s open to the public. Sankow’s Beaver Brook Farm is located at 139 Beaver Brook Road in Lyme.
