Grana Padano or Parmigiano Reggiano?
Parmesan has a sharpness, a twang to it, which can get your saliva glands pumping like a good sauvignon blanc. It is also more savoury than the milder, nuttier Grana Padano. Tony Naylor, The Guardian
The other day we bought some very cheap Grana Padano from the new little supermarket in Eltham and once again we went into the argument about Parmigiano Reggiano versus Grana Padano. Grana Padano is nearly always cheaper than Parmigiano, and so I decided I would settle this once and for all and find out what the difference is.
Well basically - as the quote above suggests - they are more or less the same cheese. And yes, the one we bought is genuine Grana Padano - it has the right markings on the rind. But there are a few subtle differences.
In 1135 the Benedictine monks of the Chiaravalle Abbey south of Milan made the first hard Italian cow's milk cheese. Later - like a couple of centuries later - the people of Emilia Romagna refined the process a bit and started making their own version - the Parmigiano Reggiano that we know today. Parmigiano Reggiano can only be made in Emilia Romagna and also to the west of Mantua for some reason. Grana Padano can be made in various northern Italian states that cover the Po Valley. Padano means of the River Po. So reason number one for the difference is the place they come from. Then there's the milk. Parmigiano Reggiano is made from a mix of the evening milk which is skimmed and the morning milk which is not. Grana Padano is made from milk that is all skimmed. So Grana Padano has less fat - 2.6% as opposed to 2.8%, which is a very minimal difference. The cows that produce the milk for Grana Padano can be fed sileage, (grain kept in silos) and therefore has to have lysozyme added to it to make it safe. Parmiggiano Reggiano cannot have sileage fed cow's milk and cannot have lysozyme. Mind you I find this a bit difficult to believe, because all the cows are kept in barns and mostly do not graze outside. When we visited the area back in 2014 there was not a cow to be seen. Maybe the hay they are fed is not stored in silos. Bit technical for me. Grana Padano can be sold from 9 months old, Parmigiano Reggiano from 12 months. So as you can see the differences are very minimal. The older it gets the crumblier it gets. The Grana Padano we bought is quite smooth, so probably pretty young.
So much for the differences. Tony Naylor, who wrote the Guardian article from which the opening quote came, maintains that you would probably only notice the difference if you tasted them side by side.
So now I know why - but I still don't really understand why Grana Padano is cheaper. Though I think I saw a passing reference somewhere to larger production and bigger factories, which might explain it.
Which brings me to my 2014 visit to a very small Parmigiano Reggiano producer in the small town of Sant'Antonio. It was run by a husband and wife team and they worked 365 days of the year. It was hard physical labour. I think they were looking forward to retirement - and their cheese was sublime. They made ricotta too - from the leftover whey. It was a truly memorable and rewarding experience. Below is a gallery of pictures of the cheese-making process. We didn't arrive as they began with the milk arriving. First of all they cook the cheese in huge cone shaped copper pots. We arrived at the point at which they removed the cheese after the curds and the whey had separated out. The only automated part of the process these days is the turning of the cheeses as they mature. They are turned every day by a robot that goes along the shelves. Can you imagine doing that by hand?
As you can see from the picture of the cheeses on the shelf - all inspected, approved and stamped, this is a DOP - like the Appellation Controlée of France. There has recently been a big hoo-ha about the use of the word Parmesan which is used all through the world for cheeses of this type that are not the genuine thing. The court ruled that nobody else but the makers of genuine Parmigiano Reggiano could use the term Parmesan but nobody seems to be paying any attention. Parmesan is sort of a generic term that covers all manner of cheeses that taste like the Italian originals. And here in Australia we have Mil Lel Australian Parmesan Cheese which at one point won the award for best Parmesan in the world - it was a Wisconsin USA competition but there were competitors from Europe, America and New Zealand. Whether any of the European competitors were genuine Parmigiano Reggiano or Grana Padano I do not know. Maybe not. Still. And it has also topped the Australian Dairy Awards several years in a row. It is actually our preferred Parmesan, and our son, who is a bit of a purist, had to admit after a blind tasting of it and the 'real' thing, that he preferred it. Not that it's cheaper than Grana Padano.
So there you have it. You don't have to spend a fortune to get good things. Grana Padano is both more ancient and cheaper and also as good as Parmigiano Reggiano - so go for it.
Oh and Pecorino is not the same thing at all. It's made from sheep's milk. Well the genuine article is. And that comes from Sardinia, the Roman area and Tuscany.
