Resisting cheese: boundaries, conflict and distinction at the foot of the Alps

Bitto cheese from Valtellina, an alpine region north of Milan, Italy, is considered by many local residents as one of the last bastions of resistance against the leveling strategies of rural development based on the standardization of "typical products". Produced as an artisan cheese and closely tied to the protection of a local breed of mountain goat (Capra orobica), it is now being reinvented as an item of "simple luxury," or rather, as an item of simplicity that is so outrageously against the logic of price that it becomes a commodity for the few that wish to cultivate culinary distinction. To others, this path toward niche commodification marks the rediscovery of this cheese as a work of "art," or as an icon of local sobriety and a need to return "back to basics". In this essay I will try to tease out the lines of convergence and the many fractures between these different strategies of valuing mountain cheese. I will also explore how individual entrepreneurs, journalists or producers' associations appropriate and perform such strategies through a politics of naming. Finally, I will consider how the issue of using the name of Bitto cheese refracts in complex and contrasting ways with the assumptions, intentions and political stakes of the legal and regulatory framework of geographical denominations through the bestowing of Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) status.