Parmigiano Reggiano _ FoodEmilia

Parmigiano Reggiano at Cheese 2015

 

Cheese 2015, at the source of milk: this is the theme of the show, presented today in the Piedmont town, that Slow Food and Città di Bra are dedicating to cheese and that will be held at Bra (Cuneo) from 18-21 September.

A theme – “at the source of milk” – that fits perfectly with the objectives of participation of the Consortium of Parmigiano Reggiano, which is also a supporter of this event. Its objectives are twofold.

First of all, at the Consortium stand there will be Parmigiano Reggiano dairies from the mountain areas, to which the protection agency has fully applied the 2012 Quality Package (EU Regulation 1151/2012), authorizing the denomination Parmigiano Reggiano – Prodotto di Montagna (“mountain product”). The new European legislation makes it possible to indicate to consumers the specific origin of food products made in the mountains, thus highlighting and promoting production in less favoured areas that have higher production costs.

The Consortium’s Quality Project regulations will also be presented, bringing a further differentiation based on a rigorous quality selection of mountain cheese.

In order again to underline the role of geographical area and of the craftsmanship of our dairies, an interesting Taste laboratory has been scheduled, organized by Slow Food in collaboration with the Consortium, whose theme will be: “High altitude meetings: mountain Parmigiano Reggiano meets Barolo”, in which a guided tasting will present cheeses from dairies in the Emilia Apennines matched with the most famous of Piedmont red wines.

The other theme that the Consortium wishes to stress is “grass and hay milk”. The final quality of cheese relies on attention to the production of fodder and to cattle feeding. This is strictly in accord with the event’s theme: “at the source of milk” there must be the choice of feeding cows in a natural way. And the choice made by the Consortium producers when they first wrote their specifications in 1954 was from the very start very specific in this regard: feeding cows on natural local fodder, namely fresh grass or hay, and forbidding fermented fodder, particularly silage maize. They chose, therefore, permanent meadows and fresh or dry alfalfa, an essential condition for another fundamental guideline: production without additives. These choices are still safeguarded in the specifications and in the practice of Parmigiano Reggiano producers, who wish to be loyal to that tradition which is the foundation of the success and recognition of Parmigiano Reggiano in the markets.

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