La Vache Mystérieuse

[steepholm]

My Parisian mother-in-law (now dead) once told me that during WWII the makers of La Vache Qui Rit changed the name of their cheese spread to La Vache Sérieuse and made the cow on the packet look gloomy, as a kind of protest against the Occupation. I really wanted this to be true, but it always seemed unlikely, and now, on finally looking into the matter, it seems my instincts were right - at least, in so far as my terrible French will let me read this newspaper.

I suppose I'll never know whether my mother-in-law was kidding me, or perhaps someone kidded her when she was a child, or whether she misremembered, or whether I have. But I offer it to the annals of cheese-spread-related social history.