Parmigiano Reggiano

[IronChefATL]

Here is a link to the Consorzio, in case yall aint seen it yet. I got lots of great pictures from this site once. Consorzio del Formaggio Parmigiano-Reggiano The button for English is in the bottom right hand side.

[shel]

Originally Posted by IronChefATL

Here is a link to the Consorzio, in case yall aint seen it yet. I got lots of great pictures from this site once. Consorzio del Formaggio Parmigiano-Reggiano The button for English is in the bottom right hand side.

Great link! Thanks ....

shel

[RonCoox]

A cheese made in Italy can only be called a PM if it has aged at least 12 months. Most good cheesemakers age it 24. Someone earlier posted that cheeses aged less than 24 months were called Stravecchio and were somehow inferior. Actually "vecchio" means "old" in Italian. Real Stravecchios are aged 30 months or more. Costco sells a good one here in the SF Bay Area at a very good price. Any US cheese that calls itself Straveccio is pretty much a hurried bogus cheese when compared to Italian. Some win prizes, yes, but they are competing with other less than superior products. Good PM = time ... time = $. That said I use domestic Parmasians and Romanas when cooking, but for grated on the top stuff...only 2+ year old Italian. I'm a 60 year old 1/2 Italian guy with a grandfather from Parma so I may be a little biased. We always had a spare wheel sitting around (have to let the flies hatch out ya know) waiting to replace the one we were using (we supplied the extended family) ...they were shipped by relatives in Parma. Ah, the good old days. :-)

[MikeLM]

Well, the indispensible Cook's Illustrated just published a Q & A on PR substitutes (Nov-Dec'07)

They tested Grana Padano, an Italian cheese aged from 9 to 24 months and goes for about $12/pound, and Reggianito, an Argentine cheese made using northern Italy's techniques. It's aged no more than 12 months and goes for about $7/lb.

They pay about $17/lb for their "favorite grocery-store PM."

The Gran Padano they judged just fair, and not really worth the relatively small savings over the PR.

The Reggianito was unacceptable at any price.

I can buy a real PM sliced off their wheel at a local Italian deli/market for $12/lb and consider myself lucky.

Mike

[shel]

Originally Posted by MikeLM

I can buy a real PM sliced off their wheel at a local Italian deli/market for $12/lb and consider myself lucky.

Mike

It's not hard to find Reggiano here starting from around $12.00/lb as well. Trader Joe's is now carrying a Strevecchio for just a little more than that.

shel