And there is its nutrition, a result of not only its ingredients but of the ageing process. Pound for pound, Parmigiano can compete with almost any food for calcium, amino acids, protein, vitamin A. “Parmigiano has a thousand benefits, even for health,” said chef Anna Maria Barbieri. “It is, let’s say, a panacea. Something that gives health to everything it touches.”
Amanda RuggeriAlthough it is a dairy product, Parmigiano-Reggiano can be eaten by the lactose-intolerant (Credit: Amanda Ruggeri)
I hope so, because at Barbieri’s restaurant Antica Moka, a Michelin-listed restaurant in the heart of Parmigiano country in Modena, I eat the cheese until I feel like I’m going to burst. From a 24-month wedge as long as my forearm, I use the spade-shaped slicer, almost as ubiquitous in Italian kitchens as Parmigiano itself, to slice off shards for antipasto. I feast from a small cup of farro soup drizzled with crema di parmigiana (parmesan cream) accompanied with Parmigiano bread. And then there’s Parmigiano again as a primo (first main course), twice over: tortellini in a sauce of Parmigiano, drizzled with balsamic vinegar of Modena, served in a fried Parmigiano bowl.
“Sometimes people tell me, ‘But Parmigiano, you put it in everything!’,” Barbieri said with a chuckle. “It’s my weakness. I really do put it everywhere.”
Like so many others in the production area, Barbieri grew up with Parmigiano. She remembers dairy farmers bringing their milk to her family’s cheesemaking factory. As a little girl, she would accompany her grandfather, one of the first members of the Parmigiano-Reggiano Consortium, the association of producers established in 1934, on his trips to factories to verify the quality of each cheese wheel and give them their distinctive stamp of approval.
Dining and Cooking