parmigiano reggiano in action!
the machine that cleans each wheel of parmigiano reggiano
I think I died and went to heaven. . .
the family estate in modena where aceto balsamico is made
As a foodie, there are some things that you have to learn to deal with or accept. For instance, places like McDonalds will continue to grow and extend to all parts of the world, and wherever it goes, it will become popular. Mom and pop places will continue to struggle and oftentimes lose to big corporate businesses. Bits and pieces of cultures will be lost. However, there are many parts of food culture that are still active and being practiced in full force today. The thing to do is to make people aware of the masterpieces that are artisan food products, so that they can be alive for the future generations to come. To completely forget where a country's food culture comes from; now that is something that I will not accept.
Italy is certainly a place that has been affected by modern capitalistic culture. With more employment opportunities for women, it is more common now to see both parents working full time jobs than having the mother stay at home. While this is actually a good thing in my eyes, it also makes things like home-cooked meals get lost to the power of convenience foods including fast food and meals-to-go. Italian women are slowly developing the US mentality towards food. Why make bread when you can buy it? Why roll out pasta dough when you can boil dried for 10 minutes and be done with it? It is this attitude that shifts a country towards a more globalist culture, rather than one that is individual and unique.
But no fear, there is still hope! In my travels around Bologna and Florence, I saw how the special products of Italy are being adapted to fit and actually thrive in the global market. Whether it is through expansion or just savvy business sense, it is through these products that Italy is and will continue to be a food capital in the eyes of the rest of the world. These products are Parmigiano Reggiano and Aceto Balsamico.
Outside of Bologna in the town of Reggiano, I visited a factory where real Parmigiano is made. Mom and I made sure to get there early in the morning, so we could watch the actual process of making the cheese. Donning our white lab coats of sorts, we were ready to begin our tour. As we walked into the steamy main room, we saw these huge copper vats each holding a mound of cheese curd weighing 90kilos each. The milk for the parmigiano comes from a special herd of cows that have diets that are extremely monitored. This ensures that the milk is the best of quality, and is also completely gluten free, as the cows do not consume any wheat products!
The milk is cooked with a combination of milk from the morning and milk from the evening. When the curds are separated from the whey, the residual is cooked again to make ricotta cheese (twice cooked cheese). What I found most amazing; however, was that the residual product can and is used as a cleaning agent for the factory. This ensures that no cleaning chemicals what-so-ever are entering the room where the product is being produced. The place is literally covered in dairy.
Once the cheese is in the 90kilo ball, it is cut in two with a large knife. It takes two people to do this. Then each ball is lifted out and placed in a cylinder mold to drain and eventually be aged. The balls of curd are carried into a room to dry out and receive their characteristic parmigiano reggiano rind. Then they are placed in a salt water bath with salt from the dead sea, only because it is considered to be the purest salt. This is what helps to give parmigiano reggiano its distinct, salty flavor. Once the cheeses are ready to come out of their briny bath, they are dried out once more before being brought to the storing room to age.
The storage room is probably the most fascinating thing I have ever seen in my entire life. Looking at my pictures, my friend at home described it as the Room of Prophecies from the 5th
Harry Potter book. I couldn't agree more. Aisles upon aisles, rows upon rows of individual rounds of cheeses, stretching all the way to the ceiling. If I were a mouse, I would have a heart-attack - it was that amazing. The cheeses are left to age for at least a year, with a machine that rolls through the aisles every so often, picking up and cleaning each cheese. I think it is the best use for a robot the world has ever come up with. The longer the cheese sits, the sharper, and in my opinion, the better quality, it becomes. The dark, slightly cool storage room ensures that the world gets the best parmigiana money can buy.
Grading parmigiano is a serious process. At the end of the first year, the national board of parmigiano reggiano cheese testers (yes, there is such a thing - only in Italy, right?) comes and goes through the grueling process of testing each cheese for quality. They do this with a simple test: banging each cheese all around with a small hammer. A good quality cheese that is graded parmigiano reggiano will make the same noise all throughout the hammering. A cheese that makes a more hollow noise in parts cannot be labeled as such, so it becomes simply parmesan and is kept from aging longer. Hence the difference between parmesan cheese and parmigiano reggiano. The good stuff is aged for as long as desired, the manager of the factory showed us one that is waiting to be cracked open on the factory's 50th anniversary, which was coming up soon. 50 year cheese? That might be pushing it a bit for me. . .but hey, you never know.
The process of making parmigiano reggiano is simply phenomenal. Of course some things have changed over the years. For instance, the workers have become mostly immigrants, mainly for the same reason why it is the immigrants in America that pick strawberries: citizens do not want to do the hard labor, low paying job. However, this is still an Italian-run business. Even though the product production has expanded to meet society's demands, the quality has not declined and the process of the old world craft is still ever present. It is through this cheese that Italian food culture is kept alive to the rest of the world.
The same can be said for aceto balsamic, or as what people know as balsamic vinegar. But do not be fooled, there is a huge difference between the two. Balsamic is a relatively new product on the world food market, becoming ridiculously popular in Europe and the US around 10 years ago. When I was little, I do not think I remember my mom putting balsamic on anything, now it is a staple in our pantry. The difference is that aceto balsamic is a product with an extremely long and limited family-run process, while the balsamic vinegar that most people know is a duplication of a flavor that many generations of people have enjoyed in Italy through the centuries. Even if the label says Balsamic di Modena, it is probably not the real thing, as the families of the Aceto Balsamic business do not own the rights to the name, so any Tom, Dick, or Harry can say that he makes balsamic from Italy, even if it is produced in Iowa. Oftentimes what we buy is not balsamic at all, but a blend of chemicals and sugars made to taste like the real stuff. However, after visiting a small estate where real aceto balsamic is made, I have a feeling that I will never be able to eat the vinegar from the grocery store again.
Aceto balsamic has been made in Italy for hundreds of years, mainly for the purpose of a wedding gift or having something to hand down to younger generations. This is because a good aceto balsamic is generally aged at least 12 years before it is consumed. And that is just the bare minimum. By the time I had left the estate, I had tasted a 30 year balsamic.
The only ingredient in aceto balsamic, I was surprised to find, is grapes. The grapes are cooked, and then stored in a large wooden barrel, with woods ranging from cherry to oak, depending on the tastes of the maker. The wood imparts some flavor to the vinegar, just as oak barrels impart flavor to a chardonnay. Since the aceto balsamic is going to be stored in a number of barrels while it is aged, a producer might even choose to use a few different types of wood during the process, sometimes creating a more complex flavor. This makes every aceto balsamic different from the rest.
The aceto balsamic is left in the barrel in a dark room (oftentimes in the attic of the household) with a small hole in the top to let air in. This helps the product to reduce down. After a year or so, the reduced aceto balsamic is moved next door to a smaller barrel, where it stays for another year or so, then moved to an even smaller barrel, etc. There can be up to 8 barrels that the balsamic is stored in, the smallest being no larger than a pasta pot. This of course means that after years and years of waiting, the end quantity is very small. This is why aceto balsamic has always been so special to the Italians, and it is why it is so expensive and hard to come by for us.
the barrels where the aceto balsamic is stored
To show us just how special aceto balsamic is, the owner of the estate gave us a testing of basic balsamic vinegar (the kind you get in the grocery store), an 4 year balsamic, a 12 year balsamic, and his special 30 year balsamic. Giving me a pretty hefty spoonful of the cheap stuff, I almost spat it out - it was so strong and acidic. But mellowed out with some honey, dijon, and olive oil, I could see that it was the base of most balsamic vinaigrettes. The 4 year was much better, slightly thicker and sweeter, I saw that this would make a fantastic dressing. Then we had the 12 year stuff. When he tipped the bottle, it took a few seconds for it to slowly pour out. The flavor was so complex and delicious, with a definite flavor of wood lingering somewhere in the background. Just a few drops would be perfect on a fresh summer tomato, a steak, or even vanilla ice cream. The 12 year was so good, I could not see how the 30 year could get better. But it was. This time when he tipped the bottle, it took about a minute for a few drops to come out. But that was all you needed. It is one of the most delicious things I have ever tasted. I really cannot even describe the flavor - fruity, acidic, woody, maybe even meaty, it was everything all at once. Just one or two drops of this could make any dish taste 50 times better, the flavor was that powerful.
In the end, I resisted the urge to spend $100 on a small bottle of 24 year aceto balsamic and stuck with the 12 year for a modest $60. The 12 year was delicious enough, but I will never forget tasting that liquid that was so much older than me. Although it can be hard to come across good balsamic in the states, I urge you to keep an eye out for Aceto balsamic that has been aged for at least 8 years. While more expensive, the difference in flavor is astronomical.
While times may be changing in Italy, many try to keep the food culture and history alive. Through products like parmigiano reggiano, and cities such as Bologna's efforts to keep mom and pop places running by naming them historical landmarks, we can expect that despite McDonalds, traditional Italian food will always be there, and it will always be popular around the rest of the world.
And yes, I am guarding my aceto balsamico with my life.
