Tag: Italian cheese
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Tasting Notes: Métier Brewing Company Beers and Cheese
This year has wrought its share of terrible things, but one bright spot in the darkness is the beautiful foods that are still being produced for us to enjoy. Just as animals don’t stop producing milk, plants don’t stop growing and people don’t cease needing to eat—even when lives are threatened by a pandemic, social…
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Parmesan vs. Parmigiano: What’s the Difference?
I grew up consuming Parmesan that came out of a green shaker. It was grated, it was white, and it went on top of spaghetti, lasagna, manicotti, cannelloni, and pizza. As a child, I was fearful of tomato-based foods. (I have no idea why; I just knew mom was trying to poison me every time…
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In the Buff—That Other Type of Cheese Milk
We’ve got cow, goat, and sheep on our radars when it comes to cheese. But what about that other ruminant animal? Buffalo milk is not among the most common milks used in western cheesemaking, but it is an important source of deliciousness. Perhaps the most famous of all buffalo milk cheeses to American audiences is…
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Pasta Filata Cheeses: Not Just for Pizza or Pasta
Pasta Filata: it’s kind of fun to say. And wouldn’t you know, this family of cheeses is also fun to eat! Pasta filata is Italian for “spun paste,” meaning that the cheeses’ curds are spun, or stretched, before the cheeses are aged (if they are aged). Filata means “string” or “thread,” and can be translated…
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Fresh Cheeses to Freshen up Your Summer Picnics (and Everyday Life)
Fresh cheeses are the wee babes of the cheese world, you might say. Allowed to sit for only a few days before they should be consumed, these youngest cheeses are fresh in all senses of the word. Understanding fresh cheeses requires a quick lesson in cheesemaking. The milk, which must be pasteurized if a fresh…
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Burrata: The Dumpling of Cheeses
Burrata and I have had a complicated relationship since my time in the cheese biz. That’s because it hasn’t always sold the way it was expected, or at least hoped, to sell. In the first cheese shop I worked at, I didn’t really understand what Burrata was. I stocked the few cases we received, it…
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Brie Vs. Triple Cream: What are We Even Talking About?
Brie is a very popular cheese—and duly so. People love brie, they ask for it, and they smear it on crackers, bread, bagels, bake it in pastry dough, and dump jams and preserves all over it. I encourage this behavior. Triple creams are also very popular. A lot of people come in searching for “Délice”…
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Gorgonzola: A Tale of Two Cheeses
Let’s start by pointing out the fact that many people think “blue cheese” is a specific kind of cheese and “Gorgonzola” is not blue cheese. Gorgonzola is, in fact, a blue cheese, and blue cheese, like “Swiss cheese” is a blanket category that is bigger than most people will ever know. We’re going to focus…
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Parmigiano Reggiano versus Grana Padano (with videos!)
Parmigiano Reggiano is the king of cheeses. The real namesake of what Americans call “parmesan,” it is among the most famous of all the many Italian cheeses. Romano (which I wrote about briefly in a post on Pecorinos earlier on the blog) is up there, too. Parmigiano Reggiano comes in a massive, 84-pound wheel that…