EFSA, Parmesan Cheese, and Prosciutto

Day 9

EFSA, Parmesan Cheese, and Prosciutto



We woke up fairly early and headed over to the European Food Safety Authority, conveniently located extremely close to our hotel in Parma. The super-modern buildings hosts the Authority, which formed in Brussels in 2002 and was recently transferred to Parma (which is, after all, petitioning to be Europe's "food valley" due to its profusion of artisan producers).

A brief account of what, exactly, EFSA is. EFSA functions as the keystone of the European Union's Food and Feed Safety risk assessment. They work with national authorities and independent stakeholders to present scientific advice and communication on issues and dangers within the food system. In plainer English - EFSA works with top-notch scientists and experts to produce opinions on what is safe and what is not in the food system. They produce opinions on topics such as nutrition, GMO's, nanotechnology, zoonoses (animal born diseases) and other relavant topics. EFSA was formed as a reponse to the widespread consumer drop in confidence that occured after the outbreak of bovine enchipalaties -you may know it as mad cow disease. In any case, their representatives presented us with three discussions, primarily regarding how they function, their review process (especially in regards to health claims from novel foods,) and some information on their nutritional review process.


EFSA's Parma formal headquarters.

After EFSA, it was time to leave Parma. We stopped briefly by EFSA's formal Parma headquarters - located in a very nice park - then drove out of town. Our destination was a Parmagiano Reggiano factory located about half an hour outside of the town itself.



When we got there, the woman who worked in the factory store greeted us and presented us with a plate of (you guessed it) parmesan cheese. There were two kinds: a fresh parmesan with a softer texture and flavor, and the more classic hard variety. They were delicious: a clear, sharp, earthy flavor miles away from the junk in the green shaker-container.



We were also provided with some nice salami, some grissini (breadsticks) and a curious Italian variant on Coke.



After waiting around a while for the tour-guide to appear, we finally were allowed into the factory to observe the esoteric practice of cheese making. The factory was not very large - it's a small scale cheese producer - and had an either pleasant or icky smell of incredibly strong cheese. I liked it, anyway.



These are the huge copper tubs the milk is pumped into. To make real parmagiano-reggiano cheese, the milk must come from 10 KM or less away - no imported stuff is allowed. The cheese is produced with a combination of whole raw cow's milk and naturally skimmed milk. These copper-lined vats are what the milk is pumped into, as copper cools extremely quickly.

Starter whey is added, the temperature is raised, and then calf rennet is put in. The whole mix is allowed to curdle for roughly ten to 12 minutes, whereupon the curd is broken up into tiny pieces and the temperature is risen again.



The cheese-makers let the curd hang out for about an hour, then collect it in a piece of cheesecloth (no kiddin') and put into molds. They are then put into a stainless steel mold which can be tightened to ensure the cheese remains pleasingly circular.



After a few days of this tightening process, the cheeses are placed in brine vats, where they will absorb salt for roughly 25 days.


Fresh parmesan prior to the aging process.



Once the cheeses have been brined, they are transferred to the aging room, where they will reside for a year. It's basically a Presidential library of parmagiano-reggiano in here. There is a nifty little cheese robot that turns the cheeses over once every two weeks. A human being turns the cheese over once a week as well, to ascertain everything is comingly along nicely. Fine cheese like this can sell for incredible prices: hundreds and hundreds of dollars is not an uncommon occurrence.



After the cheese factory, we headed to the Pio Tosini prosciutto factory, located a bit outside of Parma in the prosciutto-obsessed town of Langhirano (there seem to be about a zillion of the factories on the main street). The factory makes high quality and old-fashioned prosciutto here, processing thousands of pig legs a year. We were given a very special tour of the factory, which has been turning out prosciutto di Parma since the early 1900's. Final conclusion? Prosciutto is sorta like hot dogs: you may not want to know how they are made. Nevertheless it was a rather illuminating experience, with tasty results.



We had to put on fetching paper gowns to enter the factory for hygiene reasons. Here's Sabrina posing next to one of the tenderizing and salting machines.





After the meat is cleaned, salted and tenderized to satisfaction, it is chilled in these tremendous walk-in fridges. Here our guide is pointing out the fine points of prosciutto - I believe he was discussing the import of a large ventral vein on the side of ham.


Prosciutto fairly early on in the aging process. There are a surprising number of steps involved in the production of a good prosciutti, and the people of Parma are extremely passionate about their food products. Parma likes to call itself Italy's "food valley" and it is not difficult to see why - artisan products sprout up everywhere here, gourmet meat and cheese products exist everywhere, and the locals are always happy to expound on their favorite edibles.


Amanda posing with some prosciutti.

The hams are taken through a series of cooling and pressing processes, in an effort to drain all the blood from the meat without breaking the central bone. The hams are hung to dry in a cool environment - high quality prosciutti like these are hung for 500 days.


The prosciutto warehouse is an awe-inspiring place: a tremendous dark building hung with zillions of prosciutto. We took this huge clanking and dark meat elevator everywhere in the building and it was a rather disturbing experience: I kept on thinking that a horror movie set in a prosciutto factory would be so very easy to make. (It's not pigs - IT'S PEOPLE, etc etc). The lights went out for a moment among the resplendent meat and I was mildly creeped out. The place smells exactly as you might expect: like the scent of a good ham duplicated about five thousand times. Overpowering.


After the prosciutto factory, it was off to the Prosciutto Museum, located nearby. (We were about at the point of prosciutto factory overdose, though I happen to really like it and only longed for vegetables a little tiny bit). The Museum is devoted entirely to Parma's favorite meat product, with exhibits focusing on topics such as the area's favored pig varieties, butchering tools, different curing and production methods, and the history of cured meats throughout the ages. It was interesting stuff, and the museum itself - located in the city's 1928-built cattle market, or Foro Boario - a gorgeous piece of architecture. It is one of Parma's four food museums - the others are a Museum of Parmesan, a museum devoted to Salami di Felino (as we sampled at Slow Food) and an institution in Collecchio all about tomatoes.

We had really come for a Prosciutto degustation - a tasting of the area's finest meat products, accompanied with local wines and cheeses. The degustation was held in a lovely brick-and-ham lined room, where we were attended by a resident prosciutto expert (who also bore a certain resemblance to an Italian George Clooney). He guided us through the magical world of Italian cured meats, accompanied by some excellent wines. You should probably do this immediately.


Decorative hams on the tasting room's walls. Meat is a form of household decoration in this part of Italy.


Giardinara, Italy's common mixed pickled vegetables. These were not too intensely vinegary and very pleasant with the cheese.


Some very interesting hard rolls served with the meats. These had a cracker-like exterior and a yeasty, soft interior. I liked these a lot - had never had anything like them.


The excellent, local white wines we were served with the meats. The amadei was especially fine - with a sharp, white-fruit flavor. The other was a bit sweeter, with a taste almost like piquant honey. I'm going to seek these out when I get home.


The second taste of high-quality parmagiano-reggiano of the day. The cheese is made by a tiny producer who are developing their own "creme de la creme" brand - they are moving towards certifying each individual slice instead of each wheel, as is generally done. We were instructed to eat this with millefloure honey and it was an ideal combination - the sharp, interesting bite of the cheese contrasted perfectly with the subtle sweetness of the honey. Millefloure honey, incidentally, is so named because it is made "from a 1000 flowers" - harvested when the bees have finished their seasonal work.


The cheese was served with these delightful condiments. From left to right: walnut conserves with orange peel, strawberry and balsamic jam, and caramelized onion preserves. We went through more of these then we were necessarily supposed to due to force of awesomeness.



Everyone enjoying the tasting. The guide was extremely wordy and we didn't catch too much of what he said. You should probably consult the English language guides to the rich history of prosciutto, conveniently sold in the museum store. (Really - I read most of it, it's very interesting and involves lots of warring Italian families and drama. And pork products, like all good matters of history).



You guessed it: fine, aged prosciutto di parma. Delightfully smoky, melts in your mouth, not greasy or heavy in the slightest - yeah, this stuff deserves a museum.



Culatello, a particularly special variant on the prosciutto theme. If you are in any way familar with Romance languages, you may have guessed it's made from the butt-regions of the pig. The meat is seasoned, lightly salted, then stuffed into a well-cleaned pigs bladder. It is then hung in a nice cool environment for 8-12 months, giving it its distinctive aged flavor. It takes an entire ham to make a culatello, and as a result, it's expensive stuff - but for good reason, as it is indisputably delicious.



A board covered in prosciutto and coppa. Coppa is produced from the necks of mid-sized swine, and then is "massaged" with spices. The meat is wrapped up inside a pig "bowel" (did not inquire further) and seasoned for quite a few months. Although coppa is a form of sausage, it does not look like one - but the taste is delightful, spicy and meaty, a good contrast to the subtle, buttery flavor of the prosciutto.


We were instructed to consume our prosciutto with this fine local butter. Sounded bizarre, but ended up tasting excellent. And buttery. Our meat curator claimed that prosciutto and butter are not actually bad for you when they are this high quality. I would like to believe him.



Salami felino, another of Parma's iconic food products. Salami felino is produced using the first part of the small intestine, producing a larger sausage with a longer life then other varieties. The salami is produced with about 75% lean pork meat (from the shoulder) and 25% delicious pork fat, which is ground together and spiced with salt and pepper. The meat is put into the intestinal casings and ripened for a good long time - 110 days is the industry standard. Needless to say, it is delicious and interesting stuff.



This is a special cake. Called pasta-rossa (though I think my spelling is wrong, as I can't find it on Google), it takes three days and 17 ingredients to make. The ingredients include what tastes like cherry preserves, butter, various chopped nuts, and a big hit of campari - it is dense, sweet, and delicious. The recipe, like many old Italian recipes was almost lost - it was preserved thanks to the memory of an elderly Italian lady, who passed it on to willing acolytes. We devoured this with a bottle of excellent muscato.

Slightly lit, we got into the car for the five hour drive back to Bolsena - which happened to be through some very attractive territory. We arrived back at the convent around midnight in the middle of a pouring rain - and full of prosciutto.