8 ms·
OT, but I just have to say, as someone who buys "Parmesan" cheese that typically hails from Wisconsin, there is just no comparison with legit Parmigiano-Reggian
by jihadjihad 4y ago
OT, but I just have to say, as someone who buys "Parmesan" cheese that typically hails from Wisconsin, there is just no comparison with legit Parmigiano-Reggiano. It's the same with "Gruyere" and Gruyère -- a wholly unique cheese with a depth of flavor and character that is just inimitable, no matter how good or faithful the imitation may be.
That being said, I'm not ashamed at all to say that the Parmesan I use most is the $4 wedge from Aldi.
- fatnoah 4y agoOne thing I miss about my old place in the city was the ridiculously expensive market on my block that carried all of the "real" cheese. The real stuff was so fantastic and flavorful that I usually used far less of it, which partially offset the cost. I also got a $20 jar of pasta sauce there once. I was embarrassed at how much I paid and didn't tell my wife. After her first taste, her reaction was "OMG, what is this? It's so good!". I took a taste and was blown away. Literally every taste just amazed me, so we kept getting it. I only recognized it by the label and never learned the brand, much to my chagrin (and my wallet's delight) when I moved away and never found it again.
- wahnfrieden 4y agoPianogrillo?
- fatnoah 4y agoThis was in the mid-2000's, so my memory is pretty fuzzy. I'll definitely check that brand out, though.
- matthewmcg 4y agoIf you can get good canned tomatoes (I like the Flora brand San Marzano D.O.P, about $5.50 for a 28oz can), this is a great 20 minute recipe that will usually beat any pre-made sauce: https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1015987-classic-marinara-sauce https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1015987-classic-marinara...
- orhmeh09 4y agoHere’s a version by the same chef without the paywall: https://lidiasitaly.com/recipes/marinara-sauce-2/ https://lidiasitaly.com/recipes/marinara-sauce-2/
- ace2358 4y agoCanned tomatoes? Yikes. If you’re trying to beat premise sauces at least get some local fresh tomatoes and have a go and making it from scratch. The acidic flavour of canned tomatoes is horrible in my opinion compared to fresh tomatoes.
- djur 4y agoFor the ~1 month I have access to local fresh tomatoes, I'm going to be eating them in fresh preparations like caprese salad, BLTs, etc. rather than using them on sauces. The remaining 11 months of the year, canned tomatoes are just fine.
- np_tedious 4y agoI think this is a smart move. Your examples are cases where fresh tomatoes outperform canned. Sauces, not so much
- rdtwo 4y agoFresh tomatoes are Usally pretty bland 11 months of the year. So canned is the way to go because they are ripe when canned and retain most of the flavors
- hackernewds 4y agoYou seem to mean off-season where you're saying fresh.
- rdtwo 4y agoThey are red they look like tomatoes they just taste like nothing that’s what I mean. Those are available most of the time the other kind almost never
- fatnoah 4y agoWow, I didn't expect such a great discussion on tomatoes and sauces. I have a few things to check out. My own tomato story comes from another place in the city where I had a private roofdeck. It was basically full sun all day long. I planted 4 tomato plants, which were amazingly productive, and the tomatoes were so delicious that we ate them with lunch and dinner almost every day. My favorite summer snack became (and still is) a slice of fresh tomato topped with a slice of fresh mozzarella, lightly drizzled with a "green" olive oil, and garnished with fresh basil.
- AdmiralAsshat 4y agoThe weird thing is, I don't see that much of a price difference between high-end "domestic" parmesan cheeses and the proper Parmigiano-Reggiano. The Saravecchio Parmesan (that's the Wisconsin domestic you're referring to, I assume) is about $17.99/lb, and the real, imported stuff is about $20/lb--even cheaper at places like Costco. So why not just get the real thing?
- argonaut 4y agoIt's not clear they're referring to Sarvecchio. Some people think Sarvecchio is as good as real Parmigiano.
- heartbreak 4y agoWhere are you buying your Wisconsin cheese for that much? I’m in the southeast and at Publix I can buy a wedge of Wisconsin Parmesan for half the price of the Italian Parmesan.
- AdmiralAsshat 4y agoJust using the brand in question: https://www.target.com/p/sartori-sarvecchio-parmesan-cheese-wedge-5-3oz/-/A-47562259 https://www.target.com/p/sartori-sarvecchio-parmesan-cheese-... https://www.wisconsincheesemart.com/products/parmesan-sarvecchio-cheese https://www.wisconsincheesemart.com/products/parmesan-sarvec... The price is about $7, but you'll notice it's only about 1/3 of a pound, so the per-pound price is $20-21. Which, again, tracks with what I've been saying. The only difference is you might be forced to buy a pound of the real stuff when you get a wedge of Parmigiano Reggiano, so there's a bigger upfront cost, but you'll definitely go through the stuff. It's delicious grated, it's delicious on its own, and it freezes well.
- brewdad 4y agoI just checked. The real stuff from my local Costco cost me $13.99/lb. At that price, there's no good reason for me to buy anything else.
- blamazon 4y agoMy most common consumption method for Parmigiano-Reggiano is standing in front of my fridge at 2am breaking chunks off the wedge, with a squeeze bottle of honey and whatever berries I have on hand. Can recommend.
- masklinn 4y agoYou absolute degenerate. That sounds delicious.
- pcrh 4y agoBoris, is that you? Get to work!
- eps 4y agoTry dunking it into truffled honey.
- lsaferite 4y agoEating large chunks of Parmigiano-Reggiano off of a large wheel is AMAZING.
- asdff 4y agobuying the wedge with the rind is a treat. when you get to the end you can break off a piece and gnaw on it all day at work like a dogs bone
- SECProto 4y agoA lot of cheeses benefit from very thin slicing - it emphasizes the crystallization of Parmigiano Regiano, the creaminess of a Havarti, or the everything of an Applewood smoked cheddar.
- denton-scratch 4y ago> a wholly unique cheese Not unique - there's a cheese-shop up the road that sells a mature Gruyère that is quite different from their standard-price Gruyère, which in turn is quite unlike supermarket Gruyère. And that's all on the Swiss side of the border - Comté is the same stuff, but made 100 metres away.
- qalmakka 4y agoComté tastes similar, but it's still different than Gruyère IMHO.
- denton-scratch 4y agoUntil 1976, I had never heard of Comté; they sold that cheese as Gruyére, even though it was made in France. In that year, the AOC regulations came fully into force, and it became illegal to sell cheese made in France as Gruyére. There are many regional variations and qualities of Comté, too. When De Gaulle asked "How can you govern a country with 200 different cheeses", he was underestimating badly.
- cheese_goddess 4y agoUntil 1976, are you sure? This docu shows "Le Fromage de Comté" and it's dated 1927: https://youtu.be/icu-oMerROI https://youtu.be/icu-oMerROI One of the legends points out the similarity with Gruyére, but it still calls the French cheese Comté: "Le fromage de Comté, analogue du Gruyére suisse, se differencie de l' Emmental..."
- denton-scratch 4y agoWell, I could be wrong. The AOC rules certainly came fully into force then. And as a kid in France <= 15, I'd buy Gruyére in the grocers, and it wouldn't have the snazzy Swiss cross printed on the rind. Perhaps until then, "Gruyére" was a generic term, and they'd sell you Gruyére or Comté, whichever they had.
- chrisseaton 4y agoAnd American Cheddar and British Cheddar.
- djur 4y agoThere's plenty of great American cheddars that are as good as anything I've had from the UK.
- OJFord 4y agoI don't believe it's not doable, but all I've seen of North American supermarkets is 'cheddar-style' processed cheese and similar abominations; is food-buying just different, does anyone wanting half-decent cheese go to a cheesemonger or farmers' market or something?
- op00to 4y agoYou haven’t seen most North American supermarkets, then. Many, many supermarkets except the cheapest of the cheap carry real domestic and imported cheddar for at least 10-15 years.
- OJFord 4y agoNo, I haven't! It just stood out in the ones I did. (I didn't mean the first part as a claim to expertise; the second was a genuine question.)
- op00to 4y agoSorry that I was a bit aggressive. Cheese is a Very Important Matter. :) I noticed "Fancy cheese" (not velveeta) showing up regularly in the 2000s, when I was starting to shop for myself, and as my cheesy experience grew, "good cheese" like the better stinky ones were more available probably 4-5 years later. Now, even in my local supermarket which is considered the "worst" of all the grocery stores in the area, I can get authentic cheeses from a variety of places. I don't think people's tastes evolved as much as the supply chain for getting these cheeses around has improved much in recent years, making tasty cheese super affordable.
- bsimpson 4y agoI'm surprised that cheese imported from America is cheaper than Italian cheese. (I'm presuming you're in the EU, based on your Aldi comment.)
- Xylakant 4y agoAldi does have a significant US presence https://www.aldi.us/stores/ https://www.aldi.us/stores/
- Symbiote 4y agoThey can't be in the EU, as "Parmesan" is a PDO name and cheese with the name must come from the region of Italy.
- bsimpson 4y agoI thought "parmigiano" is the DOP name and "parmesan" is a free for all. Apparently, I'd misunderstood: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parmesan https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parmesan
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- cheese_goddess 4y agoTry aging your supermarket-bought cheese (the non-AOP parmesan and gruyere). You can do so in your kitchen fridge, but stick the cheeses in a small plastic container with a tight-fitting lid because they need high moisture (at least 70% - and that's relative moisture). Open the box when you see condensation forming on its walls and wipe it down with a paper towel. Then close it again. That's about all the work you need to do. Parmesan should improve markedly in about a year. Gruyere in three to six months. Oh- unwrap them first from any vacuum bags they happen to be in. Cheese doesn't age in a vacuum. It's fine if they're already sliced. Would be hard to fit in the fridge otherwise anyway. Depending on your fridge.
- arthurcolle 4y agoIs there a faster way to age parmesan?
- cheese_goddess 4y agoThat is the fast way. Normally it should be aged when it's still a head of cheese and not a slice in someone's fridge. Far as I can tell that takes more than a year, just because it's such a big head of cheese. The advantage of aging a mere slice is that it ages many times faster.
- arthurcolle 4y agoThank you cheese_goddess :prayer_emoji:
- cheese_goddess 4y agoYou also need a :cheese_emoji: to please the cheese_goddess :P
- mrsuprawsm 4y agoIt's somewhat sad that in the US there is no enforcement (probably entirely deliberately as a protectionary measure) of food marks. In the EU, "Parmesan" cheese must be legit Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. [1] I'd presume that Grueyere also has the same protections of origin (despite being Swiss and not actually in the EU). It's the same for a whole plethora of local products [2] and thus consumers know a) what they're actually buying and b) have the confidence that it's a legit product. [1] https://www.dw.com/en/eu-court-says-parmesan-cheese-must-come-from-italy/a-3152168 https://www.dw.com/en/eu-court-says-parmesan-cheese-must-com... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PDO_products_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PDO_products_by_countr...
- cycrutchfield 4y agoEuropean wine producers were able to get the US to enforce this, after a lot of difficulty. It used to be you could buy Californian “champagne”.
- ajsnigrutin 4y ago> In the EU, "Parmesan" cheese must be legit Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. Yep, but it's also relatively cheap if you live anywhere near italy... In slovenia, you can get it even for 12-15eur/kg in some italian discount stores (think aldi, but italian), eg: http://vsikatalogi.si/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Eurospin_akcija1.jpg http://vsikatalogi.si/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Eurospin_ak... (i know it's from 2016, it's just an example). Getting stuff that you see in american youtube videos is a bit harder here... even "american cheese" (the artifical processed one) is impossible to find.
- Rodeoclash 4y agoOne lucky thing about living in Melbourne, Australia is the large Italian migrant community here (the largest number of Italian's living outside of Italy, live here). Meaning that we have few dedicated markets here that import goods from Italy, including legitimate Parmigiano Reggiano (and Pecorino Romano which is worth trying). The real stuff has these wonderful salt crystals in it that crunch as you eat it.
- jpgvm 4y agoNothing beats Cacio E Pepe made with the real deal Pecorino. So simple and deceptively difficult to master but the payoff is divine.