We just went through customs today. We declared out cheeses which were vacuum sealed. The people in front of us were fined $300 for denying repeatedly the existence of fresh food in their luggage (5 quinces and one giant lemon). We were told by the inspector that pork products are now allowed as long as they have been cooked to 140 degrees and are in a vacuum sealed can. In other words, pâté is ok, sausage is not. But not all inspectors might know the rules. Cheeses seem to be OK, and he did not even check if they came from pasteurised milk. So we had a very runny Epoisses, a Langres and a camembert in similar condition for dinner; all raw milk products.

Cheese, pasturized or not, has been legal for the last five or six years at least. Fresh fruit is rarely legal. Meat products are iffy and depend on the product, best to buy them in duty free to be sure. Cheese is a waste to buy at duty free. The tsa website will tell you what is legal and what is not, when in doubt and when you don't what to chance it. But you can get away with the non legal as long as not fruit as screeners hardly now the difference. But you are takiing chance to have it confiscated. Overbuying wine and cigs just causes a chance of paying duty.

I remember the days of bringing back illegal cheese. Tsa tended to forget it because it smelled weird. Not really, but consider the source deciding.

Is this French or US import restrictions? Or some other country? UK?

My guess is this is about US customs, and therefore belongs on the US board, not tagged France.

As for paying duty on wine, last I checked the US customs charge was less than 30c/bottle - so low that they've not collected any duty from me on the 1/2 dozen bottles or so I regularly bring into the US.

Assuming this is about US customs, I still think this is a good comment to put on the Europe board because this is a question that comes up frequently among US visitors to Europe. And many if not most of those folks are not likely to see it on the US board.

On a related topic, I don't think that vacuum packing has any impact on whether or not the product is allowed to pass through US customs/Ag. As far as I know, the product is either allowable or not and having it packed has nothing to do with the legality of bringing it into the US.

Vendors always try to tell you that things are ok because they are packed like that but I think that this is more sales tool than truth.

I was referring above to the vacuum sealing done by individual stores, not vacuum sealing into cans as done in a factory. So, either your jamon Iberico is legal or it is not.

Having the vendor pack hour slices into a vacuum pack will make no difference to the US customs/Ag officials.

But vacuum packing for (yummy) runny stinky cheeses may be good for the rest of your suitcase contents! <grin>

I have never had any problems with any sort of canned goods or any cheeses in the last 30 years. (Of course in most cases, that may be because I did not declare having anything.) However, I have had a couple of items confiscated, but I knew ahead of time it wasn't allowed if found (2 kg of vacuum packed country bacon, for example). There was never any question of a fine; it was just taken away. I didn't deny that I had it -- I was just too stupid to declare it. ("No meat products? Oh, I thought you meant like if I had a steak in my baggage!")

I'm curious as to how the people on the same line as the OP repeatedly denied that they had fresh fruit in their bags?

Can they have been so lame as to lie directly to the inspector when asked "do you have any fresh fruit in your bags?" Kind of asking for trouble, no? And for a lemon and a few quinces!

Or is it a few "quince?"

Duty free shops sell items that can't be brought into the US. Just because you buy it at duty free doesn't make it OK.

Yes, this was at JFK, but I tagged it France because that is where we were coming from. To tag it U.S. made little sense to me because the topics appear to be predominantly domestic travel for U.S. residents.

I mentioned vacuum pack because as soon as the inspector saw the packing, he did not bother to check the cheeses themselves.

I forgot to add, beef or sheep products in any form are banned according to the custom official because of BSE (?) (Mad Cow Disease).

Guess I can't bring in those wool sweaters!

I think that they make an exception for wool products.

I had a whole carry on bag full of canned and jarred pork and duck products as well as bottles of wine. When U.S. customs asked me if I was carrying any food items I replied with a very affirmative "No". But since the agent had a trainee with him that day they opened my bag to give the trainee some practice searching bags. And I said, "Oh, you mean THAT food"? But since it was not beef (mad cow potential = not allowed) and it was all jarred or canned it was legal. He didn't care about any duty on our bottles of wine. This was 4 or 5 years ago so maybe things have changed.

You have the right attitude!

I might add that my wife thought I was so confident and convincing in my "No" response to the custom agent she began to wonder how many times I might have lied to her.

My husband loves Port wine and a few years ago I bought him a wine suitcase. We brought back ~10 bottles of Port from a trip last fall, 8 in the wine carrier and another two wrapped in t-shirts in our suitcase. Since we had a WINE CARRIER, we did not try to avoid declaring it, but while valuable to my husband it wasn't that expensive in terms of customs declarations and they did not charge any duty. The only problem occurred when the agriculture screening official misheard my husband and thought we had a suitcase full of porK.