In this installment
All cheeses lead to Rome
Cheese “letters” in tradition
What makes a washed rind cheese?
Fontina Val D’Aosta Cheese
Fontina Risotto Recipe
Cave Aged Taleggio Cheese
Parmigiano Reggiano Cheese
All cheeses lead to Rome
Perhaps it is the Romans we should thank for the proliferation of cheese-making in Europe. As they conquered and dominated Europe for more than six centuries, they taught people the art of aging cheese. This aging was key, because it meant the cheese would last longer than the rudimentary fresh styles being made at the time. Italy makes over 400 different varieties of cheese. The most famous being the great Parmigiano-Reggiano (if I had to choose just one cheese to eat, this would be it!).
Italy’s cheese, especially the hard styles, have gained worldwide popularity due to their many uses in cooking. In Italy though, these same cheeses are frequently enjoyed as part of a cheese board. Two of the cheeses in this month’s installment, Parmigiano-Reggiano and Fontina Val d’Aosta, are usually recommended for cooking. While they are great in recipes (we’ve included one of ours for you to try), we recommend you try them “straight up” as part of a cheese board.
Our cheese style focus this installment is washed rind, with Taleggio as our delicious example of this style. Washed rind cheeses are often the last style of cheese folks learn to appreciate—that pungent aroma takes a little getting used to. The Taleggio has a milder aroma compared to other washed rind cheeses, so we thought it would be the perfect entry point for discovering this style. If you are familiar with washed rind cheeses, you’ll soon discover why we went with this particular Taleggio–it is an exceptional cheese.
P.S. If you do notice a “cheesey” aroma in your box–that’s the Fontina Val d’Aosta. This cheese also has a washed rind, and is a good indicator of what stronger washed rind cheeses smell like. Just remember, you couldn’t have the cheese without the rind or aroma!
Cheese “letters” in tradition
You may have noticed that some European cheeses have letters following their name. Don’t worry, this does not mean that the cheese has received a Ph.D. and is smarter than you, but rather a guarantee of tradition. In Europe, traditional food is serious business, one in which governments are committed to protecting. France was the first country to initiate this type of regulation. On May 6, 1919 it passed the first law for the Protection of the Place of Origin (A.O.C.). This law specifically defines the place of origin for a product, including province, region and commune. Italy and Spain have since followed suit.
The “letters” guarantee that the food has been made within a specified geographic area, using exact, traditional methods, ingredients and techniques. There are hundreds of foods protected by this law, from cheese to meat to wine. In each country, the protection is operated through the Department of Agriculture.
FRANCE: AOC, Appellation d’Origine Controlee
ITALY: DOC, Denominazione di Origine Controllata
SPAIN: DOC, Quesos con Denominación de Origen
These letters not only are a guarantee for the customer, but they also provide the farmer who chooses to subscribe to the specified methods a lock on the name and reputation of his product. For example, you could not make a cheese in California, or even southern Italy, and call it Taleggio. You can make a similar style cheese, but you would have to name it something else. In some cases, if you subscribe to the specifications, then make and sell products that do not meet those specifications, you could be imprisoned and/or fined!
What makes a washed rind cheese?
(Excerpted with the kind permission of our friend William Studd from his wonderful book CHALK & CHEESE.)
Surface-ripened, washed rind cheeses are renowned for their orange rinds and their wonderfully strong smell. A mature cheese can fill every corner of a room with a stink reminiscent of the farmyard, or of socks in a sports changing room. These cheeses are something of an acquired taste, but they have many devotees among cheese enthusiasts. In a well-matured cheese, it’s only the rind that smells. The interior is mild and buttery, with a gentle, satisfying flavor.
Washed rind cheeses were among the earliest surface-ripened cheeses.
It is believed that they originated in medieval monasteries. They mature in a similar way to traditional white-mold varieties, but the surface action is produced by bacteria rather than molds. Brevibacterium Linens, or B. Linens for short, is the most commonly used strain of bacteria. Its presence defines these cheeses as a recognizable type, giving them their orange rinds and distinctive aroma. The bacteria on the surface of the cheese ripens the curds inside over a period of a month or longer. As with white-mold cheeses, washed rind cheeses are shaped to provide a large surface area for the bacteria to grow on. They are often small in size, and their shapes range from a disc to a square.
After the curds are drained and salted, the exterior of the cheese is washed regularly with a brine solution.
This encourages a protective skin or rind to form around the fresh cheese. The brine solution always contains a relatively high concentration of salt to control unwanted bacteria, but it can also contain some alcohol, a mixture of herbs and spices, or even orange annatto color, depending on the cheese-maker’s recipes. Regular bathing of the surface controls the growth of B. Linens on the rind and also helps to ensure the cheese remains moist and does not crack during maturation. The natural yeasts and airborne flora present in the micro-climate of every maturing room have a vital role in the maturation process.
Each region and each dairy has its own mix of micro flora so that no two will produce identical washed rind cheeses.
Once a strain of B. Linen has been introduced to a maturation room, it thrives in the cool, damp atmosphere and develops a life of its own. It naturally migrates to the conditions that best suit it: the surface of the wet cheeses. Regular washing (often just with water after the first saline wash) prevents the cheese from becoming over-powered and sticky from the action of the linens. The more the cheese is washed and the more humid the room, the stronger the cheese becomes. The rind usually develops a brown-orange color, but can vary in tone from deep red-orange to apricot, depending on the washing solution and the growth of bacteria.
If you like these washed rind cheeses, try Reblochon, Pont-L’Eveque, Muenster, Langres, Livarot, Mahon, and Milleens.
Fontina Val D’Aosta Cheese
Other than Parmigiano-Reggiano, which is almost an essential ingredient in risotto making, I’ve decided that my favorite cheese for making risotto is Fontina. Now, I’m not talking about any of the fake Fontina cheeses that are out on the market. Sweden, Denmark, France, even Italy make faux-fontina that has little of the character, individualism or flavor of the real thing. I’m talking about authentic Fontina val d’Aosta, from the Aosta valley in the far northwest corner of Italy.
You can usually spot real Fontina just from its look.
While most of its imitators are dipped in red wax, or painted dark brown, real Fontina has a fine, fawn-colored rind. The face of each wheel is stamped with the purple mountain seal of the local Consorzio to guarantee its authenticity. When you cut it open, you’ll find pale, cream-colored, semi- soft cheese, with just a few small “eyes” (or holes) sprinkled here and there.
The most important thing about Fontina val d’Aosta is its incredible flavor.
I’m hooked on making risotto with it because it’s so different, so unique, I can’t even give you another cheese in comparison. The flavor of Fontina stands solo, off in the corner, waiting for the attention it ought to be getting–attention which usually goes to cheeses with more predictable flavors and bigger marketing budgets. I’ve spent hours trying to find the right word to describe Fontina’s flavor, but to no avail. Which leaves me describing it as the “truffle of the cheese world;” its earthy, exotic, mushroomy and strangely sensual-flavors that make truffles so attractive. It’s a flavor I’ve found is best when melted into a dish like risotto, where its mysteries and magic are expanded upon and woven through the flavor fabric of the finished dish.
The best Fontina is made by Signor Vallet Pietro in the town of Donnas.
He’s one of two artisan producers left in Aosta. His Fontina has more flavor and richness than any I’ve ever had. I’ve developed this thing about putting Fontina into risotto along with a handful of wild mushrooms. It’s a risotto marriage made in heaven, if you ask me. I think the best yet was with fresh chanterelles, but it’s wonderful too, with dried or fresh porcini, or dried chanterelles. Blending the rice with wild mushrooms does something to bring Fontina’s flavor to even further heights. It forms a perfect equilateral triangle of taste with the creaminess of the rice and the foresty, earthiness of the mushrooms.
Risotto with Fontina Cheese and Wild Mushrooms Recipe
I cook a risotto almost every week. In the middle of our Michigan winter, maybe two or three. This one is a favorite. The subtle mushroomy flavors of Fontina are at their best when blended with the earth tones of wild mushrooms. For an extra touch of elegance, drizzle a bit of truffle oil on top of each bowl before you serve it. Enjoy.
1 ounce dried chanterelles or porcini mushrooms
1 – 1 1/2 quarts chicken broth
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 ounces olive oil or 2 oz. of butter
1/2 pound Italian rice
1/2 cup dry white wine
4 ounces Fontina Val d’Aosta cheese, rind trimmed, and cut into 1/4-inch cubes
Chopped Italian parsley or arugula (optional)
2 ounces freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
Sea salt
Tellicherry black pepper, freshly ground, to taste
Begin by soaking the mushrooms in a couple cups of warm water for about 15-20 minutes, where they will expand and soften. When soft, remove the mushrooms and chop them coarsely. Pour the liquid through a paper filter or cheesecloth to remove any sand, then save, to add to the broth.
Bring the broth to a boil. Reduce to steady simmer, add the mushrooms and the reserved soaking liquid.
While the broth is heating, sauté the onion in the oil or butter ‘til soft and golden.
Add the rice, stir well. Sauté for a couple of minutes until the rice is hot and shiny. Add the wine. Stir ‘til it’s absorbed by the rice. Add a ladleful of broth. Stir until absorbed. Repeat over and over until the rice is almost, but not quite, done in the center (about 15 minutes from when the rice went in). Add the Fontina cheese and stir until melted, maybe 1 or 2 minutes. Add parsley or arugula if you like, and stir well, again. Salt to taste.
The risotto is done when the rice is al dente, about 18 minutes from when it first went into the pan. Add a touch more oil or butter, and one last ladleful of broth. Stir, yet again, then remove from the heat. Let stand for sixty seconds. Serve in warm bowls topped with Parmigiano cheese and a generous grinding of black pepper.
Serves 2-4.
Cave Aged Taleggio Cheese
Taleggio is made in the northern area of Italy called Lombardy. The piece you have today was matured by the Ciresa family. They have been in the cheese business since 1927, and are based in Introbbio, in the Valsassina (pronounced Val-sa-see-na). It’s a beautiful valley in the Italian Alps, half an hour or so from the Swiss border, near Lake Como. Their pride and joy is the raw milk mountain Taleggio, made over wood fires by local dairies. The thing that distinguishes this Taleggio from all the rest is the nurturing, loving care that Ciresa spends on each and every one of their cheeses.
The Taleggio is brought to their aging rooms when it is just 24 hours old, then aged for 8 weeks. During this aging process, the cheese is moved between rooms that vary in temperature and humidity. Depending on how the cheese is “taking” to the aging process, it is moved only when it is ready for the next stage. Because the cheeses are all handled by people, not machines, the staff at Ciresa are experts in what they do and are able, from the look and feel of the cheese, to know when it needs to be moved into the next environment. Throughout the aging process the cheeses are washed by hand with a salt-brine solution to enhance the flavor of the cheese and aid in the development of the rind–which begins white and eventually turns a pinkish, salmon color.
Parmigiano Reggiano Cheese
I hate those hypothetical, “If you could only have one…” kind of questions, but in the case of cheese, I can honestly say that if I really had to pick one, Parmigiano-Reggiano would be it. Why? Because there’s no other cheese that can do so many things so well. You can cook with it. You can eat it as is. You can snack on it. You can eat it after dinner. It’s great for traveling. It’s got enough flavor to stand up to most wines, but it’s also mellow enough to serve with champagne. What else can I say? There’s just nothing like it. I love it. So do a lot of other people. The quotes read like an ad for a new, big budget film:
“Parmigiano-Reggiano is among the world’s two or three greatest cheeses—incomparably delicious, delicate, ancient and complex.” –Jeffrey Steingarten, Vogue
“Parmigiano is simply too great a pleasure to be taken second hand.” –Colman Andrews, A Passion for Parmesan
I don’t want to dwell on this, but for most of us Americans, the green can on the supermarket shelf was our first experience with parmesan cheese. I consider myself fortunate that it wasn’t my last. Quite clearly, all the wonderful things one can do with Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese won’t work too well if you’re using the stuff in the green can. Somehow the act of shaking out a spoonful of parmesan from a cardboard can doesn’t quite seem like the best way to finish off an otherwise wonderful meal. What comes in the can? Well it is not Parmigiano- Reggiano, I’ll tell you that. It’s likely some distantly related duplication of the real thing, grated up—rinds and all—and tucked into this green cardboard can. It may be legal to call it “parmesan” cheese, but it certainly isn’t logical. It doesn’t taste anything like the real thing.
The Consorzio
The Consorzio del Formaggio Parmigiano-Reggiano is an association of just about 600 dairies in the provinces of Parma, Modena, Reggio Emilia, and parts of Mantova and Bologna. The Consorzio was founded in 1934, and became a force 6 in Italian cheesemaking after the agricultural reform of 1954. Each cheesemaker is a member, so in essence the Consorzio works for the cheesemakers. That said, it’s the Consorzio—not individual makers— that puts in place the high standards of operation and runs ongoing tests to make sure those standards are being met. You can see the Consorzio’s seal of approval on every wheel of Parmigiano-Reggiano; a dozen or so inspectors insure that any wheel that wears its round seal has earned it.
The idea of having to protect the identity and integrity of a cheese is a relatively recent one. For centuries, what we now know as Parmigiano was just the local cheese. To this day, when folks in Parma go into a store to buy a couple of pounds of Parmigiano they simply ask for “a kilo of cheese.” No need to say which one—everyone knows what they want. By the way, the name might vary a bit from town to town. In Parma it’s “Parmigiano,” but further south in Reggio, people will ask for “Reggiano.” There’s an age-long competition between the two towns; each considers itself the most important element in making the cheese what it is. In fact, in the area around Reggio, they still call it “Reggiano-Parmigiano,” reversing the regulation ordering of the names in order to give their fair city what they feel to be its due. In Reggio the partisans are adamant that the cheese was essentially invented in their district. So, they insist, they should take top billing.
The most impressive thing to me about the work of the Consorzio, is that its standards have kept production of Parmigiano small, yet still economically viable. The average Parmigiano dairy makes a grand total of eight or nine wheels of cheese each morning! Even at 75 pounds or so per wheel that’s nearly 700 pounds of cheese a day. Seven hundred pounds a day puts this average dairy at about the same level of production as the smallest of American cheesemaking farms. To grasp just how unusual this is, take note that a large American cheese factory can quickly crank out thousands of pounds in an hour! And yet from this small scale of production, the Consorzio has fashioned a successful industry and produces what I think is the world’s greatest cheese. Bigger is not always better.
Dairy shrinkage
The number of dairies making Parmigiano-Reggiano has declined significantly in recent years. In the ‘70s there were as many as 1,000, but now it’s down to about 600. What happened? Nancy Radke, the representative of Parmigiano-Reggiano in the U.S., says, “It’s harder and harder to find people to go into such a rigorous business. And a lot of them have teamed up to make a little bit bigger dairies so people can get a day off, so the average size is bigger than it used to be. There aren’t too many two-cauldron dairies anymore. Some bigger ones now have as many as fourteen.” An Italian architect, whose father is the president of the Parmigiano co-op in the town of Marinello, told much the same story but from a more personal perspective. “When I was a boy, there were many, many dairies here. Now all the small dairies are closed. Today the co-op is the only one left. We must preserve it for the tradition. And people have a great deal of passion.”
Even with this shift, the average Parmigiano- Reggiano dairy is still surprisingly small. I’ve visited a few now and even the biggest is, at best, comparable to a moderately small facility over here. A few years back I stopped at a small cooperative in the hills outside of Parma. They made only five wheels of cheese when I was there in November; in spring and summer, when milk production is at its peak, they work their way up to six. Parmigiano dairies make cheese every single day of the year. No days off, no holidays, no nothing. Just a steady supply of fresh milk that has to be made into cheese every morning.
The cooperative employs a pair of cheesemakers—these same chaps have been making cheese there for decades. As is traditional in the area, the cheesemakers live in apartments above the dairy. Watching them work, it’s clear that they’ve been at this a long time. In Italian, the master cheesemaker is a casaro. To qualify as a casaro is no casual feat. It takes 10 to 14 years of active apprenticeship before the Consorzio will turn a cheesemaker loose on the liquid milk in his own dairy; it’s the same sort of training time we put into getting brain surgeons through medical school and residency.
Countless hours with their hands in the milk and the curd leave their mark; they have the big fingers and rough red hands that are common to cheese- makers everywhere. These guys love their cheese. They love to talk about it, eat it, smell it, and touch it. Their faces show the years they’ve spent working in the dairy, but their eyes still light up with new energy every time I ask a question. There’s a passion that comes from the heart, from a love of one’s craft, a care that no amount of money or high tech equipment can replace. They talk away right through the making, yet it’s evident that no detail escapes their attention. They’ve got their finger on the pulse of the cheese from the minute the milk truck arrives to the time the cheese leaves the vat. They work with the practiced and calm skill of a veteran midwife who’s delivered thousands of babies successfully, yet still marvels at the miracle of each new arrival.
Giorgio Cravero’s Parmigiano Reggiano
Giorgio Cravero’s fifth-generation firm in Bra, Italy, has been selecting and aging Parmigiano Reggiano since 1855. They buy from a series of specially selected dairies (aka, caseifici in Italian), folks with whom they have long-standing relationships. They focus on aging wheels that are sweet and light, with a cherry-like lusciousness that prompts you to reach for another piece just about the time you finish the first. What we have right now comes from the Caseificio Sociale San Pietro, one of the smaller makers in the Parmigiano Consorzio, and one of the few that are found in the mountains.
Knowing the lineage of the Parmigiano-Reggiano that we sell is nearly impossible since the Consorzio tries so hard to show that all the cheesemakers are created equal. They may all be good, but they’re not all equal. Working with Giorgio Cravero is like having an extra judge of quality and flavor involved in the process. He picks the cheeses he thinks will “age out” beautifully and we get to reap the rewards of his knowledge and experience.