FOOD: The Bite in Roquefort

The Roquefort Association is not a gourmet society. It is the organizer of a volunteer group of private eyes made up of cheese importers, distributors and salesmen. They keep a constant lookout in restaurants and stores to see that no waiter palms off less than true blue Roquefort. Genuine Roquefort is a trademarked blue cheese made from ewe’s milk and aged in caves near Roquefort, France. The association’s amateur sleuths inspect grocery counters, sample Roquefort salad dressing in restaurants, keep a sharp nose to customs lists of cheese imports.

Since the Roquefort bloodhounds went to work 30 years ago, they have won more than 40 consent decrees against phony Roquefort salad dressings, brought a dozen suits against cow’s-milk cheese passing as Roquefort. Two months ago the association won a U.S. district court temporary injunction against an importer’s “Roquefort” cheese made in Hungary. Last week it won a satisfying victory: a consent decree and damages of $1,250 from San Francisco’s famed Trader Vic restaurant for putting Danish blue cheese into Roquefort dressing. “Trader Vic’s can afford it,” explains the association’s boss, New York Lawyer Frank O. Fredericks, “but if most restaurants had to fork up $1,250, they’d have to close their doors. It will serve as a dandy warning.”