Baita Friuli
June 14, 2009
Country and region of origin: Italy, the Friuli-Venezia region of Giulia
Milk: Pasteurized Cow’s Milk
Age: at least 5 months
Rind: Natural rind, not particularly edible
Creamery: Various
Creamery website: Unknown
Properties: Nice, firm and buttery-colored, Baita isn’t a particularly well-known cheese but it’s a fine, slightly fruity, oddball of a cheese. It reminds some of cheddar, some of gruyere. For me, it depends upon what you’re eating it with. It melts beautifully.
Uses: Grating, cooking, sandwiches, munching
Wine Pairings: Zinfandel, Pinot Noir, or hearty red wines; some suggest dry Rieslings, also
Production Notes: Wheels are about 22 pounds, typically. Listed ingredients are cow’s milk, rennet (animal rennet) and salt.
Asiago Pressato
June 9, 2009
Country and region of origin: Italy, Veneto
Milk: Pasteurized Cow’s Milk
Age: 2 months
Rind: natural, inedible
Creamery: Agriform
Creamery website: Agriform Website
Properties: This is not, as is commonly thought, the younger version of Asiago d’Allevo. Asiago Pressato is also a DOP cheese, though its DOP criteria is quite different from that of Asiago d’Allevo. Asiago Pressato is, by contrast, invariably a mass-market cheese. It is creamy, semi-soft and relatively mild in flavor.
Uses: A good sandwich cheese and a fine melter, it’s also a decent snacking cheese.
Wine Pairings: It would be pretty good with a nice, crisp white or a light, fruit red.
Production Notes: Asiago Pressato is an “industrial” cheese, called “pressato” because it is pressed to speed up ripening. It is higher in fat than Asiago d’Allevo and also milder and more rubbery. This is not to say that it doesn’t have its uses, simply that it is a less regarded cheese among those who care about such things.
Asiago d’Allevo
June 7, 2009
Country and region of origin: Italy, Venetto
Milk: Pasteurized Cow’s Milk
Age: 10 months minimum
Rind: Brushed, inedible rind
Creamery: Agriform
Creamery website: Agriform Website
Properties: We carry the vecchio or older version of this cheese and it is dry and mildly salty. Light beige paste with small holes throughout. Quite hard. It has actually very little in common with the domestic cheese that bears the same name, which is saltier and less subject to seasonality.
Uses: A fine though relatively mild grating cheese and a good pair with salami and antipasti.
Wine Pairings: Fruity light reds as well as bigger, chewier Italian reds (Barolo or Chianti)
Production Notes: From the Agriform website: “This is a semi-fat cheese with semi-cooked paste produced in the province of Vicenza, Trento and some areas around Padua and Treviso.” In the middle ages this was a sheep’s milk cheese. Like Parmigiano Reggianno this is made with skim milk. It is sometimes aged as long as 2 years. Nutrition Data
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.”
Pecorino Toscano Stagianato
February 19, 2008
Country and region of origin:
Milk: Pasteurized Sheep’s Milk
Age: Over Four Months
Rind: Natural, inedible
Creamery: Il Forteto
Creamery website: www.forteto.it
Properties:Salty and rewardingly sheepy, Pecorino Toscano Stagionato is the medium-aged variety of the three D.O.P. Pecorino Toscanos carried by PFI. It is still young enough to be a little sweet, but old enough to be assertive. It is pleasantly dry, with nice crystalization, and pale yellow in color. Wheels of Stagionato are 9 inches across and about 3 inches tall.
Uses: Like all great pecorinos, this one is great with salami, shaved onto pasta or eaten on its own. Try it with gnocchi or in your homemade panini.
Wine Pairings: This pairs well with big Italian Reds – think about Chianti or Brunello.
Production Notes: This is a well-pressed cheese, aged carefully.
Testimonials:
Steven Jenkins – Cheese Primer:
My second favorite cheese in the world
