Operation 'Save the Mimolette' Is a Winner on the Web

Our national mimolette has become undesirable in the country of Uncle Sam. But lovers of “old Holland” are joining forces and taking action on social networks to defend their dish.

The French and cheese: a true love story. So when the Americans decide to banish from their soil and then to destroy tons of mimolette “made in France,” fans of the “Lille ball” take action.

Starting with the “Save the mimolette” support committee, created especially for the occasion in the United States. These lovers of this cheese, traditionally produced in the north of France, are fighting with humor against its ban on American soil. They have occupied the Web and social networks, backed up by Facebook and Twitter accounts. The price of their success: Already more than 3,200 fans on their “Save the mimolette” Facebook page. One of these “fans” confirms moreover that she has just “spent $45 to buy the last big piece at my cheesemonger’s! (1/4 round) … I refuse to be without mimolette in my fridge!!”

The hash tags #savethemimolette and #mimolette are also getting a response from the Twittersphere, receiving almost 40 messages per hour since yesterday. Internet user @alexsabot posted a photo on his Twitter account asking the Marquis de Lafayette to “come and save the mimolette”!

In the same vein, @SamyToupet calls out, “Northern friends, let us rise up! Don’t let the Yankees touch our mimolette.”

Furthermore, the Internet users are competing to find puns to defend the French cheese. “The cheeseburger will never be as ‘grate’ as the mimolette,” posts @OlivierSourd on Twitter.

For his part, @Edouardborie laments, “And meanwhile, the mimolette no longer has its green card.”

Others pay tribute to the French cheese and publish photos of sculptures carved in mimolette.

Moreover, many Internet users are mocking the justification put forward by the United States to ban the cheese. The Food and Drug Administration has, since March, refused the importation of this cheese, which it deems “consisting in whole or in part of a filthy, putrid or decomposed substance, totally unfit as food.” In reaction to these declarations, @MarineFavier ironically remarks via her Twitter account: “Banned from the U.S. because it’s ‘unfit for consumption’! What a decision, coming from a country where it’s well-known that all food is organic.”

“So American produce is so much better for us than our mimolette! #OuVaLeMonde,” adds @kattyamazouz.

Still on Twitter, Internet users are reacting to the mobilization of the English-speaking press to defend the cause of the mimolette. The Washington Times devoted an editorial to the question. It has even hit the front page of The Washington Post with the headline, in French in the text, “Au revoir, Mimolette? Fans unhappy as FDA blocks French cheese shipments over mites.”