5 ms·
Lol, that's kind of true. They've been producing basically a _slightly_ inferior, cheaper knock-off version of Parmigiano-Reggiano for centuries and nobody ever
by qalmakka 6y ago
Lol, that's kind of true. They've been producing basically a _slightly_ inferior, cheaper knock-off version of Parmigiano-Reggiano for centuries and nobody ever complained; at least they always steered clear from associating themselves with the "Parmesan" brand because like many knock-offs they basically achieve what is arguably a less prestigious and blander product by having laxer quality standards.
For instance, Parmigiano-Reggiano can only be made by cows eating certain kinds of grass, which should be dried and not fermented. Farmers grow their own alfalfa, which is then turned into bales and stored away for the winter months; this is a taxing and expensive process, but avoiding fermented, cheeper feeds (like maize trimmings) makes the milk more shelf stable, with less unwanted bacteria, which then reflects into a cheese less prone to spoiling or tasting off.
The insistence of Grana Padano (which is mostly made on an industrial scale, compared with the smaller, cooperative dairies in the Parmigiano-Reggiano area) to allow farmers to use lower-quality feed stored in silos forces them to allow preservatives like Lysozyme in their formulation, because their milk gets inevitably contaminated by the Clostridium bacteria from the fermented feed they give to their cows.
Before anyone complains, I might be a bit biased towards Parmigiano-Reggiano because I was born and raised in the area it is produced, so I ate a lot of it in every form, shape and size, but I think every cheese connoisseur knows that there's definitely a taste and quality difference between the two; I like Grana Padano overall, but even when long aged it's definitely not as deep, flavourful and complex as an equivalent wheel of Parmigiano-Reggiano. It's simply not the same.
- makomk 6y agoFrom what I can tell, they're probably one of the big beneficiaries of the EU removing the last generic term for this kind of cheese by extending protection to the word Parmesan - a lot of UK supermarkets and the like switched to pushing Grana Padano instead.
- visarga 6y agoYou talk at length about the 'cheese' part of the issue, but there is also the 'free speech' part. Do you think a brand of cheese can be so special as to justify censuring speech?
- qalmakka 6y agoNo, it's not, otherwise all those "homemade Nutella" recipes and such would all be illegal. It's not like this guy was going to sell the cheese as Grana Padano, so I really don't see the point the Consortium is trying to make, especially since the final product is just approximately similar to Grana Padano, and clearly not 100% exact. It's like as if Coca Cola went after all those cheap generic Colas only because they are clearly piggybacking on the big brand popularity of Coke to sell their product. I think that if someone buys cheap pre-grated knockoff Parmesan in a bottle, it's because they wouldn't have bought the real deal even if they had known it's better, and not because the knockoff exists. For instance, I know that certain brands of canned mackerel taste a bit better then the brands I usually buy, but I just don't care enough to spend extra cash on it. In the same way, I don't buy generic knockoff cheese because I care about it tasting worse then the real deal, and I consider it being worth the extra money.
- iso1631 6y agoTry selling a Gucci handbag and let me know how your free speech gets on. Which specific free speech law are you talking about?
- visarga 6y agoI'm not sure Gucci would put down a hobby account for trying to make a similar bag. But if they did, I'd say their bags are not worth the price on our freedom of expression.
- justinclift 6y agoThat's interesting. Wonder if it'd be feasible to come up with an equivalent of Yakult, but to give cows to nuke/kill-off unfriendly bacteria like Clostridium?
- qalmakka 6y agoIt already exists, it's called giving cows the right feed, and it has been done in Italy since the early middle ages. Quality requires effort, and the whole problem arises from Grana Padano producers being stingy and wanting to reuse byproducts of corn production instead of growing or buying the right types of grass.
- justinclift 6y ago> It already exists, it's called giving cows the right feed ... Hmmm. That's the equivalent of saying "Giving people a good diet is the same as Yakult". :( Not really what I was going for. ;)