Saturday, November 24, 2007

Parmesan cheese, the real thing for pasta

For your enjoyment - an old poster for parmesan cheese, the real thing for Italian pasta dishes. From their noses you might get the feeling that this was a Stilton or something. A kilo of this cheese is $24.00, but a kilo lasts a long time.

"Parmigiano-Reggiano is considered by the gourmet and connoisseur to be the only cheese worthy of ordaining all kinds of pasta dishes, which once tasted is never forgotten. Its rich and historical background make it one of the world's most highly prized cheeses, for many, second to none."

"Few products in the world are distinguished enough to have their location built into their name, but Parmigiano Reggiano is one of them. Parmigiano-Reggiano is a hard texture cheese, cooked but not pressed. The milk obtained, from cows on a strict regime diet of grass or hay, is exclusively from the territories of Parma, Reggio Emilia, Modena and part of Bologna and Mantova. " (link)

When I grew up in Sweden in the 70s and 80s, I never heard about parmesan cheese. Instead we used Rivosto (="grated cheese" in Swedish) on our spaghetti, which apparently is no longer made. There isn't even a picture of Rivosto on Google Image Search. It is like the Swedish Raketost (Rocket cheese), it is completely gone. Raketost was inside a waxed tube and you pushed it up from the bottom and sliced off slices with an attached string. It was more fun to slice than to eat! The last Raketost was made in 1979, so it died out even before Rivosto.

2 comments:

AnS said...

Det fanns raketost när jag var barn. Vi åt osten därför att det var så roligt att snöra av ostskivorna. De fick lägga ner tillverkningen därför att den var ohygienisk.

LS said...

Why do the Italians have green hair? Look again at the poster.

AnS said the production of Raketost was suspended because it was unhygienic. I think the cutting of it by a string held by little messy kids' fingers must have been pretty germy too.