French claim to clotted cream dishes a dollop of misery on the Cornish

AS IF the Cornish do not have enough to cry about, it now looks as though they may suffer the final indignity of seeing their trademark clotted cream being whipped by the French.

No self-respecting holidaymaker returns home from Cornwall without a quantity of the exquisitely rich and calorie-laden Cornish clotted cream. But a French proposal to the European Union, which insists that the term "Cornish clotted cream" should not be limited to cream made in Cornwall, may result in Cornish cream being made anywhere in the world.

The Cornish cream industry supports hundreds of jobs and, in the light of recent rulings on fish quotas and beef, it has - until now - been one of Cornwall's safest sources of income.

The county is feeling the pinch. A huge contingent of Cornish men and women travelled to London for the recent countryside rallies in Hyde Park, not only to defend their hunting, shooting and fishing rights, but also to ram home the depth of feeling among local farmers about how proposed legislation hits particularly hard in the south-west of England.

The loss of its exclusive rights to Cornish clotted cream would feel like the last straw and the relationship with Brittany is beginning to turn sour.

The French are arguing that since there is a small region at the south- west tip of Brittany known as Cornouaille, limiting the terms "Cornwall" and "Cornish" to products from a part of England would be unjust.

The EC's 1992 regulation on the "Protection of Geographical Indications and Designations of Origin for Agricultural Products and Foodstuffs" states that unless a name such as "Stilton" is registered in Brussels, anyone can use it - as in the case of the much-abused Cheddar cheese.

Two days before the recent registration deadline, the French agriculture minister lodged a protest against the idea that "Cornish clotted cream" could be made only in Cornwall.

So great is local ire that even Cornwall's traditionally Europhile Liberal Democrat MPs have felt constrained to support the protests. Andrew George, MP for St Ives, warned that the row could "severely damage the inter-Celtic relationship between Cornwall and Brittany".

The Cornish must be wondering where it's all going to end. Surely not even the French would have the nerve to nick their sacred Cornish pasty.