Hard Cheese

An Apology

Lies, deceit and a PDO

Would I lie to you, well yes. In fact if you have been round to mine and had a pasta or a risotto I probably already have. I suspect I have also broken several European laws and denied some cheese maker in Emilia–Romagna his (or her) human rights. So without any further ado I unreservedly apologise to all the friends I have lied to, the judiciary of the European Union and the good people of northern Italy.

I know it's no defence but I suspect you lie too.

So we have cooked some pasta mixed it with a rich tomato sauce and served it up in our best dish. What do we grate or sprinkle onto it before tucking in and dividing it in equal proportions between our best white shirt and our chin?

We have lovingly fed a pan of rice with ladle full after ladle full of stock while gently caressing the resultant mix with our favourite wooded spoon. What do we add along with the butter after removing the pan from the heat and before covering it with a lid and leaving it alone for five to work its risotto magic in secrecy?

We have studied the oversized laminated menu, made a decision, discussed it, changed our mind, made a new decision, changed our mind again... a process that repeats itself until the waiter appears for the third time and we order the butter nut squash ravioli, if only because we have had meatballs twice that week already. It duly arrives and the waiter offers you a grind of black pepper and a sprinkle of parmesan.

Yes that's it parmesan!

Well probably only in the British sense. You see, we Brits use the word parmesan as a generic term for any Italian hard cheese. In fact parmesan is the French-language name for Parmigiano-Reggiano and for reasons we will discover 'it ain't cheap'. One of the few times when I actually told the truth to my guests when offering them parmesan was when I foolishly popped into a deli in town and bought a chunk of the real thing. To compound my foolishness in order to save the girl behind the counter from cutting a slice off this tough little cheese I offered to take the rather nice looking, if quite large wedge already cut. The cheese was weighed, priced and wrapped. Not wanting to appear cheap or naïve I extracted my credit card and handed it over while nibbling my lip. It may just be coincidence but I'm sure that was about the same time as the world went into financial crisis. For the same monetary reasons I suspect the stuff on offer from the waiter isn't parmesan in the true sense of the word – at least the practice of dispensing it from an oversized pepper mill is falling out of favour, how hard, dry or stale must the cheese be for that to work. I've never been brave enough to try poking cheese into my pepper mill but I do have another little trick with a slightly larger machine, more of which later.

So Parmigiano-Reggiano, sounds like something Captain Bertorelli would say in 'Allo 'Allo but no - What-a mistake-a to make-a (sorry, couldn't resist). In actual fact Parmigiano is the Italian adjective for Parma and Reggiano is the adjective for Reggio Emilia. Listen to me - adjective, good grief I'm frightening myself. My old English teacher would be proud, my old French teacher would be apoplectic. We didn't do Italian and to be fair I didn't actually do much French either. Mr Parker and I never really bonded, a thick cane and his ability to launch a board rubber like a SAM missile did nothing to endeared me to him or his second language. Enough of languages back to geography. As we know Parma, of Parma Ham fame and Regio Emilia,of Torneo di Capodanno fame (don't worry if you haven't heard of that, it's a chess tournament) are two provinces in the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna. These two provinces along with Modena and Bologna (both in the same region) and and Mantova (in Lombardia) are according to Italian law the only provinces where cheese made in the parmesan style can be labelled Parmigiano-Reggiano. In fact our Brussels buddies have classified the name as a Protected Designation of Origin (PDO).

Just because it's made only in certain parts of Italy can't make it that special, I hear you muttering. No there's more to it than that, it has to be made in a special way...

First of all Parmigiano-Reggiano is made from 'raw' milk from cows fed only grass or hay but even this is not straight forward. It has to be the whole milk from the mornings milking mixed with the naturally skimmed milk of the previous evening's milking (presumably if you wanted to work the night shift this could be reversed). Either way, whey is added (if I was 'txting' I'd insert a smiley face here) and the whole concoction warmed up before calf's rennet is added. This is left to curdle for quote 10-12 mins, not 9, not 13 but 10-12. To cut out the detail the curd is collected and bunged into a mould and imprinted with ID's and dates before being dunked into a salt water bath for three to four weeks. When, what are now referred to as wheels, come out of the brine they are aged for a full year before a guy called the Consorzio Parmigiano-Reggiano inspects each and every one for cracks and voids by tapping the cheese with a hammer and listening to the sound it makes, not unlike our wheel-tappers of the steam railway era, although I suspect the hammers differ slightly in size. Cheeses passing this tap-test are left to mature for at least another 12 months but sometimes for as much as another 48 months.

So if we are not using genuine parmesan (Parmigiano-Reggiano) what are we using. Well I go for the less expensive cousin to Parmigiano-Reggiano, Grana Padano, as apparently do most Italians.

Grana Padano, the name comes from the noun grana (‘grain’), which refers to the distinctive grainy texture and the adjective Padano, which refers to the Pianura Padana valley. (The reason this cheese is called "Grana Padano" and not "Grana Padana" is because in this case the Italian word "grana" is the masculine noun, "il grana," describing this specific cheese, and not the feminine noun "la grana", which means "grain". Male nouns, female nouns... you work it out - Mr Parker would be loving this).

Noun sexing aside, Grana Padano is not dissimilar to Parmigiano-Reggiano but is made over a much wider area and with different regulations and controls such as the cows being allowed to be fed silage not just grass and hay. Younger Grana Padano cheese is considered inferior to its more famous longer-aged relative but it does come in three degrees of maturity. Grana Padano (9 to 16 months), Grana Padano oltre 16 mesi (over 16 months) and Grana Padano Riserva (over 20 months). I have never compared Parmigiano-Reggiano and Grana Padano Riserva side by side in a tast test but I would be surprised if I could identify which was which. I certainly doubt I could tell the difference grated, sprinkled or mixed into pasta and risotto. Maybe Sir David Frost could as, if I recollect correctly he once claimed his favourite sandwich as York Ham and parmesan cheese, a good if expensive combination.

The choice is yours but I for one am going to try and stop the depict and lies. Next time I serve up pasta to a guest I shall pass the bowl of grated cheese and say in my best Italian accent “Would-a you like-a extra Grana Padano... its-a Riserva...”

Actually I have just lied again, I don't grate my Italian hard cheese. I like to cut the wedge into pieces, chop it into crumbs in the food processor before storing it in a airtight box in the fridge ready for use at a moments notice. I like the crumby texture and find it much easier to use than those soft insubstantial little threads you get from grating. This is a little trick I stole from Simon Hopkinson.

OMG, not only am I a liar I'm a THIEF as well!