PARMESAN CHEESE

Our exploration then moves to the countryside to discover, among a wide variety of flavours, the truly distinctive taste of Parmesan cheese through a journey across its cheese factories. It’s an experience for curious people who are eager to enjoy the good and beautiful things during business trips and/or leisure holidays.

We hope you will interpret our suggestions as a discreet travel companion which might help you take fully delight in visiting the myriad of tastes, art, culture and nature characterising the Bologna area, from “terre basse” (the low lands) up to the ridge of the Apennines.

PARMESAN CHEESE is the first stop-over of this journey: the secret of such goodness originates in the place of origin and in an outstanding nine-century history which perpetuates the same inimitable taste using the same production process.

PARMESAN CHEESE dates back to Middle Ages, when Benedectine monks developed- in their monasteries- agricultural and cow-breeding activities aimed at labouring field and producing milk and meat.

Hence a big-size (then it was about 16 – 20 kg) hard cheese production spread quickly; beside being long-lasting, the more time went by, the better this kind of cheese was.

People still make it, sticking to the old original recipe, with the same attention and passion they used to have nine centuries ago, loving and preserving its generous taste and its incomparable organoleptic properties.

In the silent storehouses the cheese wheels seem to run one after the other in long rows on wooden shelves; each of them needed about 550 litres of milk.

Then, it is marked.

The aging stages are divided into: 18 months, “bollino rosso” (red mark); 24 months, “bollino argento” (silver mark); beyond 30 months, “bollino oro” (golden mark).

Its Italian excellence status earned it even a STAMP!

On 25th March 2011, The Philatelic Office of “Poste Italiane” (Italian Post Office) in Reggio Emilia provided both a stamp and a postcard, object of a special cancellation.

As you might have guessed, PARMIGIANO REGGIANO is an ongoing top-quality symbol and it is available either in the numerous cheese factories in the Persiceto area or in our specialty shops.

We would like to mention some places where you can buy very good local parmesan: “la Casearia Sant’Anna” in via (street) Sparate n.1 in Anzola dell’Emilia or “il Caseificio Sant’Angelo” in via Imbiani n.7 in San Giovanni in Persiceto.

To know more: http://www.parmigiano-reggiano.it/