Ask Away: Can travellers bring cheese back from Europe?

Certain types of cheeses travel better than others. Photo / 123RF

I'm travelling around Europe early next year, through France, Germany, Switzerland and Italy, and if there's one thing I'm looking forward to, it's all the delicious cheese I'm going to eat. I've heard food is much cheaper over there and I was thinking of bringing back a few cheesy souvenirs. Is this allowed — and would cheese even survive a longhaul flight?
- Nell

You've come to the right place. My family is German and we visited every couple of years when I was a child — and my dad always liked to bring back a "cheesy souvenir" as well.

The food items that you definitely can't bring into New Zealand are fresh fruit and vegetables, fresh meat or fish and honey or bee products.

Luckily, cheese isn't in this category — and this might come as a surprise to some. It just has to be 2kg or less, commercially prepared and packaged and in its original sealed packaging.

As for surviving a longhaul flight, certain types of cheeses travel better than others. Hard cheeses travel best without refrigeration — so stock up on varieties like aged gouda, Parmigiano-Reggiano, Pecorino or Appenzeller.

Stay away from washed rind cheeses, such as Winnermere, Epoisses and Taleggio, as they tend to be stinky and will smell more the longer they're out of the fridge.

Keep them wrapped — and I'd put them in your checked baggage rather than take them in the cabin.

Readers respond:

Brian Burton wrote in response to last week's Melbourne advice with a strong warning for anyone considering the Tramcar Restaurant.

"We try to do Melbourne every two or three years, we love the place, in general and have done that tram car, ONCE," he says.

"Once is enough of that sort of thing in anyone's language."

"The minute you sit down they are shoving wine in your face, you just finish the first mouthful of wine and they are trying to shove food down your throat. That process is repeated throughout the entire ride."

To make matters worse, the trip ended in the middle of nowhere and "we had to tramp for nearly half an hour just to find any streets let alone alternative transport".

Maybe a no go?

*****

Denise Knapp had some advice for Hemi, who asked about currency in Cuba. She found the rate to exchange currency at the airport was the same as anywhere else — but, "what we did not realise was that at a bank or CADECA in Havana or in a small town it will take you one hour or maybe two hours and even three hours to do this".

She added that there were very few ATMs and very few restaurants accepted credit cards.

Email your questions to askaway@nzherald.co.nz

Eli cannot answer all questions and cannot correspond with readers.