What's in a name?

European food producers, especially good ones, have invested a lot of time, money and legal effort to create and enforce rules about the naming conventions around their foods.

You can't, for example, call sparkling wine Champagne unless it comes from Champagne.
Same goes for cheese, at least sometimes. Parmigiano or Parmesan is supposed to come from Parma, right?

A few years ago, some producers in Germany were slapped by European courts for skirting the rules on Parmigiano. That seemed to be the end of that, and käse-loving Germans would be the beneficiaries of clearly labeled cheese.

Not so fast, says a German prosecutor. If you translate the name into the local language, perhaps, naming rules may not apply.

Now let's see, what is the German for "tasteless, fake Parmesan?"

Click here for the story, about a German prosecutor's latest remarks that Berlin may not be on the hook, after all, to go after its famous fakes.

And, if you're really interested, here's a bit more background on the topic, from 2004.