Parmigiano-Reggiano
May 15, 2008
Country and region of origin: Italy; Emilia-Romagna
Milk: partly skimmed cow’s milk
Age: Varies; PFI typically stocks wheels that are at least two years of age. The staff can easily tell how old the current wheel is – typically we carry a three-year cheese.
Rind: Brushed and oiled – quite hard
Creamery: Agriform
Creamery website: Parmigiano-Reggiano Page
Properties: Parmigiano-Reggiano is hard, rich and complex. Its interior texture is grainy or flakey – in fact crystaline. Because of its unique texture, there are special tools used for cutting this cheese that respect the structure of the cheese. Reggiano is very much affected by the seasons. The milk changes significantly depending upon what the cattle feed on and that changes significantly with the seasons. Again, ask our staff which season we currently are selling.
Uses: This is the real thing. Use it in cooking, grate it on pasta, eat it on its own. There is no substitute, even if there are many cheeses that trade under similar names. No knockoff has ever acheived the flavor or the texture of this cheese and it seems unlikely, at this late date, that any shall.
Wine Pairings: Any big, fat Italian red would be right for this cheese. Barolo is my favorite, but Chianti Riserva is choice as are Barbaresco or Barbera.
Production Notes: The manufacture of Parmigiano-Reggiano is tightly controlled by legislative fiat and careful scrutiny.There are a lot of sources that detail the creation of this cheese. Here are two of them:
- This is a detailed description of the production of Parmigiano-Reggiano
- And this is a detailed, well-written (by Marian Burros in the New York Times) treatise on the seasons of Parmigiano-Reggiano.
Testimonials:
Steven Jenkins in the Cheese Primer: “the world’s greatest cheese”
Juliet Harbutt in The World Encyclopedia of Cheese: “It is one of the finest cheeses in the world.”
Vivienne Marquis & Patricia Haskell in The Cheese Book: “Without doubt those macaroni makers would have insisted that only one cheese was fit for their pasta: the true Parmesan, the great Parmesan that must be counted among the half-dozen best cheeses of the world; the Parmesan that can be made only in Italy, and there made only in a certain small section in the north. Delicately grained and subtly flavored, it is the cornerstone of Italian cuisine and the necessity of cooks the world over. For Parmesan is the only true seasoning cheese we have – a cheese that has something in common with the truffle whose essence seems to bring every other ingredient into its own. There is no cooking cheese like it, nor for that matter any table cheese better than Parmesan that is freshly cut and still moist.”
