Chef Matt Carulei will be selling $400/kg King Saul cheese from the Adelaide Hills (that’s in Australia), teamed with a honey parsnip puree and seasonal mushroom shortbread at The Flour Factory restaurant in the city.

“Pasteurisation kills off many of the flavor characteristics which would normally be expressed in a well-made raw milk product,” Carulei said.

King Saul is a cow’s milk cheese and the first of its kind in Australia. It was previously sold only online direct to customers under a producer’s licence.

WA cheese importer Nick Bath says fear of pathogens was the stated reason for the bans.

“Historically, raw milk has been prohibited in this country for reasons of human health,” he said. “But the cheese-eating French aren’t dropping like flies, which made our laws look increasingly out of touch.”

Except in 2007, two of France’s (and thus the world’s) top lait cru Camembert producers, Lactalis and Isigny-Sainte-Mère, announced they were forgoing the status of “Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée” and switching to cheese made exclusively with heat-treated micro-filtered milk (not quite pasteurized but still an affront to purists).

Lactilis’ spokesperson, Luc Morelon said that although they recognize the importance of Camembert traditions, they’re making the change “[b]ecause consumer safety is paramount, and we cannot guarantee it 100 per cent. We cannot accept the risk of seeing our historic brands disappearing because of an accident in production.” In response to his critics Morelon added, “I don’t want to risk sending any more children to hospital. It’s as simple as that.”

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