Friday afternoon calls for a cute story about smuggling cheese from France, we think. Every traveler should have a good outwitting-airport-security story, although that doesn’t apply for bad things (like boxcutters). We only condone smuggling more wine than liquid restrictions allow or the like—you know, just the good stuff.
Anyways, back to the story. Rachel Bajada is an Aussie expat who resides in France. She writes a great blog called French for Foodies, and in it she recently discussed a dramatic trip through airport security at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport, before a trip down to Malta.
Bajada was traveling with three cheeses—two of which were unpasteurized—to gift her friends in Malta. Security pulled her aside, and declared that two of the delicious cheeses would have to be thrown out. Why? Because they qualified as liquids and she was over the limit! What to do…
After much back-and-forth and a tear-jearker story about a fictional grandma which you can read in her post here, it was the security officer who solved her problem for her, though in the weirdest loophole way:
‘Put one half of each of the cheeses inside a baguette, and wrap up the other half separately.’
He continues: ‘This way, technically, the cheese between the baguette will not be classified as a liquid substance anymore, and the other half will be closer to 100 mls.’
…I go to the café and alors- there is only one baguette left for sale- and of course it’s filled with ham. I buy it anyway. It’s better than nothing. Out goes the ham, I take a plastic knife and begin chopping the blue d’Auverge in half, much to the baffled looks of the other café patrons at my table. I then proceed to stuff the empty baguette with massive slabs of blue cheese, and wrap the remaining half…
Needless to say she made to Malta with the blue cheese, but the other, more liquid-y cheese met the airport trash can. And now we’ve all learned something, and that is how to properly smuggle cheese from France—make a cheese sandwich!.
Check out the entire blog and more from Rachel Bajada HERE.
3 Wheeled Cheese 