Le Guide de l'Espresso: Parmigiano Reggiano Dop

Type, production notes: Fat cheese; cow's or mixed milk, whole, raw or pasteurized; lamb rennet or veal; pressed, fermented, crucia or semi-cooked, semi-hard pasta; semi-mature or seasoned.
Taste-olfactory synthesis: Intense and persistent aroma, with a fragrant and delicate recognition. Very tasty, though the fullness and delicacy of flavor that is characteristic of it.

Perhaps the best-known Italian cheese in the world, also due to the countless attempts of imitation. Even mentioned in Boccaccio's Decameron, from the 13th century, since the Middle Ages characterized dairy production between Emilia and Lombardy, favored by the influences cultural and technological developments coming from Northern Europe following the fall of the Empire Roman. Today it is produced all year round in the provinces of Modena, Reggio Emilia and Parma, and in part of the provinces of Bologna and Mantua, both in the mountains and in the plains and using also native breeds such as the Vacca Bianca Modenese, the Bruna or the Rossa Reggiana. Second centuries-old processing, the raw milk from the evening milking is skimmed into basins low and wide due to the spontaneous emergence of the fat, then mixed with whole milk of the morning milking, inside bell-shaped copper boilers. After inoculation with whey starter, the milk is added with natural calf rennet powder. There curd undergoes a breaking with the thorn to the size of a grain of millet and comes cooked to 54-55°. After the dough settles to the bottom and rests, it is cut in two pieces and is removed with a linen cloth. In each shape, from the minimum weight of 30 kg they come apply the casein plaques bearing a unique identification code; afterwards the branding bands feature the classic information-bearing dots such as the dairy serial number, the year and month of production. Finally, yes carries out the salting in large brine tanks for 24 days. The minimum seasoning for be marketed and 12 months, then it moves on to 24 and 36 months. To be branded Parmesan must pass the "expertisation" phase, i.e. a series of tests necessary to guarantee the PDO: they consist of beating the cheeses with a hammer, in the puncture with a pin for the olfactory test and in the opening of a chosen shape randomly.

Beer - Honey Beer Mielika 10/12°C
Wine - sparkling rosé Mutonera-Claudio Pless
Honey - Alfalfa - Chestnut
Sauce (chutney) - Tropea onion