October Cheese of the Month- Parmigiano Reggiano September 30, 2010
Posted by cheesefish in : Cheese of the Month , trackbackI can’t say I am a foodie. I was informed by a real, dyed in the wool, veritable foodie that my poor taste in liking to occasionally eat the pollock-dyed-pink- imitation crab meat will never allow me to take on that title, but I like food. I especially like cheese as you may have already guessed from the name of the blog so I have decided to write a cheese of the month post for several reasons. The first reason is that I like learning about things that interest me and delicious chunks of ripened milk interest me greatly. The internet allows all of us to find out a lot of information in a short amount of time, but I like merging information in my own way. The second reason for a cheese of the month post is that I like making cheese and I hope that by trolling the internet and other sources for information on cheeses in which I have an interest will help me make better cheese that is closer to the type I am aiming for.
When I was at university, I took a course in cheesemaking (a prize of a chunk of homemade cheese to the first person who doesn’t know me who can guess what university I went to that offers such an amazing course!) in my third year. I loved this course. I still have my notes from it tied together with butcher’s twine in the cupboard over the stovetop where I can refer to my ‘make notes’ and my scribbles on milk chemistry. The lab sessions were conducted in a mini-commercial style cheese manufacturing room where we donned hair nets and white lab coats and poured 100L of milk at a time into gleaming, stainless steel tanks shaped like a fat infinity symbol and turned it into curd, then cheese through a series of culturing, cutting and heating and salting steps. Pure alchemy with dairy. Now, I make cheese in a stock pot inside of an enamel canner on top of an electric element in my kitchen. Different scales of production, but the same processes.
Cheesemaking is a series of quite simple processes, but there are layers of complexity within each of the processes. To make truly great cheese is something that may take a lifetime of dedication to just one style of cheese. It is a parallel story to that of making bread. Anyone can make bread by following the recipe printed on the back of the flour bag at the supermarket, but to make truly amazing bread with rich flavours, the crust the way you like it and the crumb perfectly open and flexible, well there are colleges in France that deal just with that and courses in North America that get you started before you go to France and potentially embarrass yourself. And cheese may arguably be more complex than bread due to the whole ripening process and the natural bacterial flora found in milk as well as the terroir of the milk depending on the time of year and the pasture on which the cows, goats, sheeps or yaks are sitting and munching.
October is a month of giving thanks for the harvest and the time of first frosts and coloured leaves so I picked a cheese that goes well with the transition foods – the foods filled with late, fresh vegetables from the garden but with the complex starches we all crave coming into the colder weather. Parmigiano reggiano. I don’t mean this type of parmesan which was all I knew of this cheese as a child…
Parm but not parm
I mean chunks of well aged, dry Italian goodness made in the province of Parma, Italy, and also in the provinces of Bologna and Mantua. True parmigiano reggiano is a D.O.C. cheese with its name branded into its rind and a distinctive fruity flavour that comes partly from the spring pasture on which the cows graze to produce milk traditionally used in this cheese and partly from the process for making the cheese. Cheese of this style that cannot qualify for the D.O.C. ranking is simply called parmesan and there are many fine cheeses that go under this name as well, but if you want to taste the real deal, look for the full PR name. This cheese is made from partly skimmed milk so is not a very high fat cheese though the cheese made in summer is higher in butter fat than those made in winter. It is a grana style cheese which refers to the grains of crystallized amino acids that form within the cheese matrix during aging and give an amazing mouth feel to the cheese with tiny crunchy moments nestled in the smoothness. To be called a true parmigiano reggiano, the cheese needs to be aged at least 12-14 months and at this stage it is still known as giovane or young. It can be aged for up to four years to achieve different textures and flavours. The only additive allowed in this cheese is salt which is added by soaking the infant cheese in a saturated solution of Mediterranean brine for 20 days. This type of cheese was well documented already by records from the 13th century so has likely been made since at least the 12th century – eating cheese like this links you to a place and a history of a artisanal process passed along through the centuries.
The famous diary of Samuel Pepys, English Member of Parliament during the restoration period describes how he took the time to bury his ‘parmezan cheese’ along with other key possessions to protect them from the Great Fire of London in 1666. Smart man – save the cheese!
We all think of grating this cheese on our pasta and it is fantastic in this traditional capacity, but branching out with this granular beauty is just as satisfying. Grate it on popcorn with a bit of local butter for a decadent movie time snack as per Joe Fiorito’s suggestion in his lovely book exploring food, nibble on it with fresh fall apples, grate it over rich winter squash roasted in the oven with some olive oil, have a traditional dessert of fall pears and fresh walnuts with a slice of parmigiano reggiano or just try it in a sandwich for something different from the usual cheddar. Happy October!
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