obscure2k

So much wonderful cheese in Italy...where to begin discussing the wonderful cheese available..
It is common to see a small jar or ramekin of parmesan (which may or may not be authentic) on restaurant tables in the U.S. offering an Italian menu. Diners sprinkle that "cheese" over every dish offered, be a meat sauce or a seafood sauce. A waiter in Rome on my first trip to Italy told me, in no uncertain terms, that grated cheese was never to be served over seafood. True or not, I was sufficiently intimidated so I have never ordered nor have I prepared a dish which included parmesan and shellfish.
I love Gorgonzola with a ripe pear and a glass of red wine. That is so sexy and the first time I had that was on an Alitalia flight from Rome to Venice.
I have had difficulty finding cheese and fruit served together. More often I am offered cheese and bread. I want a soft cheese and a crisp piece of fruit. Why is that so difficult to find?
There is a cheese called Tomino Boscaiolo from Piemonte. It is a cheese which is not to be eaten on a cracker, it is a cheese to put over vegetables or pizza. Tomino is a melting cheese. There is one purveyor in So California which occasionally has it. If you are lucky enough to find this cheese in the U.S. grab it and let it melt over your roast vegetables.

KLouis

One of the biggest problems with imported cheeses in the States is the fact that human consumption of cheese made from unpasteurized milk is not allowed. Of course, you can always get illegally imported cheese (I remember myself buying camembert from crude milk at a store on US1 close to New Brunswick back in the 80s when I lived in the US. I felt like I was being crack or heroin), but it can certainly not be offered without risks (e.g. health inspections) in good restaurants. Although similar laws exist in the EU due to the lobbying of the countries where cheeseries are run by multinational companies, you still get the good stuff in Europe. I am certain, though, that our grandchildren will never witness the small atomic explosions coming out of a box or package or ripe Gorgonzola or Bleu de Bresse or Kopanisti when opened after a long stay at room temperature with a glass of red wine waiting for it, and they will never understand the difference between a Mozzarella di Buffala eaten on a Friday morning or evening in Campagna or Lazio and a Mozzarella made in Denmark or the USA.

Pity!

ShopAround

I remember during one of my first trips to Italy, maybe 25 years ago, I had ordered a seafood pasta dish. The server tentatively approached us with the grated cheese - I suppose he thought that was what Americans wanted. I very firmly shook my head no and he gave me this radiant smile of approval.

I think an Italian friend had mentioned this rule to me and I'm not a fan of grated cheese on pasta, anyway. But a nice chunk of Parmigiano, maybe with a drizzle of aged balsamico... delizioso!

soonerborn

Not true. Cheese made from unpasteurized milk is illegal to sell in the US unless its been aged for 60 days. So that means most soft cheeses are only available from pasteurized milk. That still doesn't mean you can bring it home from overseas and it doesn't mean you can make it yourself and eat it. In many states you can even sell it on your farm, just not offsite. Many places around here that sell raw milk, and many products including cheese made from raw milk. You just have to go to the dairy and buy on site.

As far as bringing home for private consumption, I think any hard or firm cheese is automatically ok. Only really soft cheese are denied. Even then, you can bring back soft cheeses if they are packed in brine (why hello there Buffalo mozzarella).

mromalley

My suitcase is usually filled with things like wine, cheese, Bronte pistachio paste and pinenuts. I am partial to Sheep's milk pecorino, which I can buy at home but it is outragerously priced. I can buy a wheel of it for the price I would pay for a slice here.

Funny story about bringing back cheese from Italy

I was in a small caseifico outside of Vasto in Abruzzo. I was looking for particular cheese with truffles that I had purchased on my last trip. They were out but offered me a different cheese, which was a young cheese. I explained it need to be aged more than 60 days for me to be able to bring it back to Canada. The woman pulled out another wheel of cheese, ripped the label off of it and slapped it onto the wheel I was interested in buying and said "non ce male".

Perche

With few exceptions there isn't grated cheese on any type of pasta, not just fish, and certainly never on pizza. It's like the ubiquitous, "would you like some freshly ground pepper?" on everything, from soup to salad to pasta. No, I would not. If the recipe called for pepper, why didn't the chef put it in when he was cooking the dish? When did every dish start to require pepper on top?

Parmigiano on a pasta is supposed to melt, and it then becomes part of a creamy sauce. Sometimes if it doesn't, and you add a few teaspoons of the still boiling pasta water to melt it. This is done before the plate is even put out on the table, but occasionally they will shave a tiny bit on top as a final garnish.

Some things are enhanced by parmigiano cheese, others are not and would be ruined. The waiter would know, and the cheese will already be on the dish, and he will shave a little garnish on top, without asking, because it's how the dish is made.

If they are bringing it out for all plates, like the "would you like some freshly ground pepper?" especially fish, then it is a tourist restaurant, because only italian-americans put parmesan on food. There is nt parmigiano on the table in a sugar shaker in Italy. Once you shave it it gets too dry looses its taste, so you have to grate it fresh onto the food.

Since fish has a alight taste, which is why they aren't covered with a heavy, thick sauce, if you grate parmgiano over your linguini alle vongole, you will not be tasting any vongole. You will just be tasting the cheese. If a waiter even asks if you want parmigiano on your fish, you should leave, because you are in some tourist trap, otherwise, they'd know better, and would refuse to put cheese on your fish.

The cheese has to be freshly grated. Any time you smell cheese you are smelling molecules that are leaving the cheese and are no longer part of its taste. Parmesan already grated and in a sugar shaker or green tube at Costco or Safeway has no more smell, and no more taste.

Plus, it was revealed in multiple media sources and posted here, that shredded parmesan cheese doesn't have much parmesan cheese. It's wood pulp (cellulose), with spicy cheese flavoring, but no parmesan cheese in the parmesan cheese.

That's why Italy put parmigiano-reggiano on its protected food list, where it must have a seal, similarly to what it did with vinegar because of all the fake "balsamic" vinegar, and what it did with wine, and is trying to do with olive oil.

In Italy, parmigiano-reggiano undergoes very serious inspections to make sure it has the right quality, otherwise, it cannot use the name parmigiano-reggiano. Experts do surprise inspections and insert long, thin tubes into the core as it's developing, to make sure that it is coming along OK. If it meets all of the quality tests, then it gets branded.

If it's called parmesan cheese, instead of parmigiano-reggiano, it means that it is low quality junk that nobody wants to put their name on, except for some international corporation like Kraft or Kellogg, and is mostly made out of wood pulp and artificial flavor.

If it's in a sugar shaker at your restaurant, you are putting wood shavings on your food. There might not even be any cheese in it. Some cheese advertised as 100% parmesan cheese has no parmesan cheese at all. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/...b08ffac1271f1e

The key is if it is labeled parmesan cheese. Italy has obtained an international agreement that the real thing has to be called parmigiano-reggiano, and be covered in a wax coat, and the fake stuff must be called parmesan cheese.

Just don't eat anything with parmesan cheese: no chicken parmesan, no veal parmesan, no sausage parmesan, no meatball parmesan, no parmesan cheese on your pizza, unless you like sprinkling wood chips over your food. It is for this reason that none of these dishes even exist it Italy, because there is no such thing as parmesan cheese.

Mozzarella is a very interesting cheese. To "mozzare" something refers to the motion of pulling it apart and cutting it. Literally, cut cheese. It has to be stored under water. Once you get it home it has to be eaten within two days or else it is spoiled. The rubbery stuff sold in shrink wrapped plastic in the USA isn't mozzarella, but Italy hasn't been able to get a law passed to outlaw calling it that, as they have with parmigiano-reggiano. This is how it's made. I have never come across anything like it in the USA.

obscure2k

Perche are you familiar with this company, http://obica.com?

Perche

No, unfortunately, they don't have one in San Francisco. In Italy, good mozzarelle are not that hard to find, but in the USA it can be tough. Ubica sounds delicious!

rickg523

I visited the shop in Campo de Fiori in 2014 with Elizabeth Minchilli. Learned about 4 different kinds of "mozzarella." They all have their own names but beyond bufala, I've forgotten. The names, not the creamy deliciousness. The products were top flight and because we were with Elizabeth, we got to see "behind the tourist curtain" with some demonstrations and history.
I'm back in Rome in a few months and it's on my agenda for a repeat visit. Actually, I'm going to try and repeat the tour on my own. All 8 places we ate at were worth another visit.

Forstbetrieb

Fior di latte for example.

obscure2k

My son had dinner at the Obica, Santa Monica, Ca location earlier this week. Said it was outstanding and my son is one who makes his own ricotta so appreciates and understands good cheese.

mromalley

That's interesting, they changed their name or at least a letter in the name. It used to be Obika.

I've eaten at the one in Campo dei Fiori a few times. The Caponata is amazing, it beats every other caponata I have eaten or made.

rickg523

?
That doesn't ring a bell.
Here was the itinerary as far as I remember.
Antica Latteria, Forno, Obica, Viola Norcineria, a shop in the ghetto specializing in hard cheeses (can't recall the name...is that Fior di latte?), Giggeto, Roscioli, and Gelateria Alberto Pica. Plus a primer on shopping at Italian open air markets and some historical stops along the way between shops.
It was a 5 hour graze. Highly recommended.

mromalley

Fior di latte is a cows milk mozzarella

The store you are referring to is Beppe e i suoi Formaggi. They also now have a stand in Campo de Fiori.

http://www.beppeeisuoiformaggi.it/

KLouis

Fior di latte is a mozarella-like cheese made out of cow milk. Rather bland for my own taste, but many people love it. Best fior di latte is supposedly made in the area of Monte Faito, the mountain between Castellamare di Stabia on the gulf and the Amalfi coast. You can drive up there: e.g. Agerola, beautiful and not too much traffic, though narrow and winding road. No buffalos up there but many cows. Just thinking about having lunch in the moutain induces salivation at 4 am! Unhealthy

The only good mozzarella (buffala) in the Lazio region is the one made in the south of the region, near the border to Campania. You'll agree that bringing milk into the heart of the city of Rome in order to make mozzarella and have people taste there is one of the most touristy things that one can think of (independent of the actual taste of the cheese).

I recently came back from Umbria (where the video posted by Perche was made), where I lived for 3 years less than 20 km away from that cheesery. If I would grade the mozzarella bought at a random Italian super market with 1 (vs. 10 for a hand-made one in the actual production regions) the ones made fresh at those places at Todi, San Giovanni, etc. were a 4-5. People in Perugia preferred the vendor (and his son) in their vans who were driving up and down almost daily (~4 hours one way) selling mozzarella in all possible forms (their treccia was a 6-7) and other goodies from Napoli.

I now enjoy different kind of food, including a Greek (!!!) mozzarella di buffala (a 3-4) which I found here in Crete the other day (made way up north).