If you wanted to start an Australian business making feta or Gruyere, you can’t. Your right to use these names has been surrendered in our recent Aussie-EU trade deal. Grandfathering and lengthy phase-out periods have been secured for some existing producers with longevity, but hundreds of products will eventually need to be renamed.

There’s nothing new in this. We haven’t been able to call Aussie Champagne ‘Champagne’ since 2010, even if it is made exactly the same way with the same grapes. But how much better would it have been if, rather than changing the name to the very mundane ‘sparkling wine’, we’d called it ‘snob bubbles’, ‘corked chaos, or ‘Satan’s sparkles’? I can’t stand the prospect of another round of terrible new names that show all the creativity of our early European settlers, who named the brown snake and the grey kangaroo. So, in the public interest, I suggest the following new Australian names for protected European products.

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Food names banned in Australia

Feta

I’d like to just call ours ‘Betta’.

Gruyere

While brie, camembert, edam, gouda and mozzarella are all safe, not so Gruyere and Comté. So I’d suggest we call Gruyere ‘Posh Old Swiss’. This would then allow us to rename Comté, its sister cheese from over the border, as ‘Posh Old French’.

Fontina

Given this cheese’s oozy properties when heated, I think we should rename it ‘Meltina’.

Prosciutto di Parma

The EU has conceded that some cured-meat names have become globally generic. Bratwurst, kransky, csabai, mortadella and Black Forest ham are all still available for Australian producers to use freely. But just as with other product names that are no longer to be permitted here, banning the use of Prosciutto di Parma is designed to protect the geographic uniqueness of the product. So surely if we called our locally cured prosciutto by the place of its production we’d be alright?

I’m thinking instead of Prosciutto from Parma we have ‘Prosciutto di Parramatta’, ‘Prosciutto di Penola’, or maybe ‘Prosciutto di Pimpama’? After all, no one could get confused by the difference between Parma and Peechelba.

Irish whiskey

Here’s another name we can no longer use. Maybe we mark our historical connection to the rest of the world through our wharves and ports (and the passing of one of Sydney’s great restaurants) by calling it ‘Whis-Quay’?

Credit: iStock

Prosecco

While Aussie winemakers wanted prosecco protected for their use because it’s the name of the grape (like shiraz or chardonnay), this will eventually have to change for any such Aussie wine exported. I’ll let those more au fait with 11am drinking and spritz culture to choose whether Australian prosecco should be known as ‘Adult Party Pop’ or ‘Fizzy Koala Rain’.

Ouzo

How about just calling it ‘Booze-o’? ‘Feeling Ani-seedy’ or ‘Afternoon Nap’ could also work.

Grappa

The days of Aussie grappa are numbered too, and while I can see objections to ordering a shot of Aussie Grippa, how about a shot of ‘U Little Ripper’? Or maybe just call it ‘Blind Pony’, for the stumbly walk home.

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