Author Topic: H Hoffman Blog Article and Pictures on Making Parmigiano-Reggiano & Grana Padano  (Read 14494 times)

Offline Cartierusm

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How much was it? Here at whole foods it's $21.99 a pound at trader joes it's $15.99 a pound, both Parmesano Reggiano but the trader joes one doesn't taste as good.

wharris

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its about 20/lb here in Cleveland.

chilipepper

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Well this was a pretty hot deal all the way up her in god's country. I got this for $18/lb. I just finished my little bedtime snack and I'm thinking this is could get ugly. Weren't one of you alluding to the fact that crack might be a cheaper habbit/hobby? :)

Offline Cartierusm

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I've mentioned this before but have any of you had Midnight Moon, a goat cheese, oh my sweet jesus it's good. It still amazes me that a taste like that can come from goat milk, bacteria and salt.period!

wharris

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Was reading in Wikipedia about Parmigiano-Reggiano.

"Parmigiano-Reggiano is a hard, fat granular cheese, cooked but not pressed, named after the producing areas of Parma, Reggio Emilia, Modena, Bologna, in Emilia-Romagna, and Mantova, in Lombardy, Italy."


Erin

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Last Friday, I went to a cheese tasting at the St. James Cheese Company here in New Orleans. Featured was Parmigiano Reggiano. They had Giorgio Cravero, Parmigiano Reggiano ager extrordinaire, in town from Bra, Italy. He says the company is rather small and they produce only three (80 lb) wheels of cheese a day. The wheels are aged 24 - 32 months.

They cut open a wheel at this event, and passed around samples. It was very good, but I was surprised that it was not as hard and dry as I think of parmesan.

I hope I did the links in this post correctly as the link to Giorgio Cravero (he referred to himself at a "maturer") is very interesting.

Cheese Head

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Erin, thanks, link works great, pictures of that very special 80 pound monster would be nice :).

wharris

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You realize that one wheel represents 1600 USD retail..

Makes you really appreciate this:
« Last Edit: March 08, 2009, 04:21:58 PM by Webmaster »

Offline Cartierusm

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WAYNE! I told you in private not to show my cheese cave!! ;D

Offline Cartierusm

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After making lots of parmesan I do have to kind of concure, it may not be "pressed" but they do use a weighted follower of, I'm guessing, 10-15 pounds. And my recipes call for only 20 pounds of pressing, but that's at a 4" wheel so for my wheels it's a lot more. Anyway what I concur on it that a lot of the hardness of parmesan comes from the high temp cooking where it releases a lot of whey so the curds go into the mold pretty hard anyway, hard compard to let say a cheddar.

P.S. Excellent links, thanks.

Erin

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Erin, thanks, link works great, pictures of that very special 80 pound monster would be nice :).


I didn't take my camera with me to the cheese tasting. I've never been to a cheese tasting before so I didn't know they would be cutting open this 80 lb wheel, much less that such a thing would be a much celebrated event. My husband did take a few pictures with his cellphone. They didn't come out too good but here's the best one. At least the parmigiano reggiano was in focus!

« Last Edit: January 31, 2009, 09:00:18 PM by Erin »

wharris

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The picture did not come out for me..  got the red "x".

But i've come to understand why cracking that wheel would be cause for celibration.

Much like a well crafted bottle of wine.

Erin

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The picture did not come out for me..  got the red "x".

But i've come to understand why cracking that wheel would be cause for celibration.

Much like a well crafted bottle of wine.



The picture is at this link:  http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/hoEERl_dehyGGooBtja6Nw?authkey=CWnU-HV4zcQ&feat=directlink

Offline Cartierusm

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Cool pic it looks at though the blurring of the man was on purpose.

LadyLiberty

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Here is a video from the Parmigiano-Reggiano facility and of their process: Parmigiano-Reggiano

If you have some time watch the rest of the videos on that page as well.  They are very interesting in regards to the equipment and the scale at which they are producing their respective cheeses!  Very impressive!

Grandioso!  È bella!!  (just faking it!)