How Parmesan, the famous Italian hard cheese, is produced to a medieval recipe, and aged for months or years
- Parmesan is loved everywhere, but the real thing is only made in northern Italy, using a centuries-old process and three ingredients: milk, salt and rennet
- The cheese is aged for between 12 and 72 months, and if quality inspectors are satisfied they certify it for sale as DOP Parmigiano Reggiano
You could be an Italian superstar chef like Massimo Bottura, crafting five different ages of Parmigiano Reggiano into a three-Michelin-star dish that includes a soufflé, a wafer and a mousse.
You could be a home chef, baking an aubergine Parmigiana or shaving cheese into a salad to give it a fabulous whack of umami.
Frustratingly, you could be dining in a restaurant where they ration the grated cheese like gold dust, hovering over your plate with a tiny spoon, whereas you’d much rather they just trusted you and left you the bowl.
That’s the beauty of Parmigiano Reggiano – we’ll call it Parmesan – a product that, wherever and however you eat it, only ever improves a dish.
Given its global renown and huge popularity, it’s still surprising to learn that authentic Parmesan cheese is only produced in a few small pockets around the northern Italian cities of Parma, Reggio Emilia, Modena, Mantua and Bologna.
