The cheesemonger’s art of splitting a wheel

Receiving a full wheel of Parmigiano into a shop is a great occasion. The scale and beauty is breathtaking. Of course our job is not to display beautiful cheeses but to sell them cut into pieces for our customers. Cutting is the wrong word. Parmesan isn’t cut, it’s split.

When we received our first full wheel, we had briefly witnessed Parmesan being opened and we had acquired the right tools. These were the days before YouTube, so we were on our own, no expert demonstrations at our fingertips.

No cheesemonger ever forgets splitting their first wheel of Parmesan. We had ordered a set of short, wooden-handled knives and they had duly arrived by post. Our first full wheel lay in wait.

We looked at the knives. We guessed the hooked one was for scoring the hard rind. We took it from there. We scored the rind across the top and down each side. Then flipping the heavy wheel over we scored across what was now the top. There were two dagger-shaped knives and another with a longer blade like a wide chisel. We drove the chisel into the centre of each scored side and the daggers into the corners, pulling them out with some difficulty.

The cheese remained whole. With a dagger in the centre of each side score and the chisel hilt deep in the centre of the top face we used three of our four hands to twist and wriggle the blades. Despite our fuss and commotion the cheese opened slowly and quietly. The sweet salty smell wafted up and a few shards of golden cheese dropped on to the table.

With some practice and confidence the job becomes much easier. A wheel of Parmesan is a huge, heavy and unwieldy thing, but when you’ve seen someone open a wheel by hand you realise that it is not about muscle strength and force. You work with the cheese’s own weight and structure. It’s almost like it wants to be opened. You are just there to help it along.

We took a lot of time and care over that first wheel. As young cheesemongers, we could not afford to make a mistake. We had a lot of turnover invested in our lump of gold. Now cheesemongers can look up the art online. We recommend everyone does. Our favourite clip is cheesemaster Carlo Guffanti cracking open a wheel.

Walking down any supermarket aisle in the world we can see Parmigiano-Reggiano in value packets or in fancy premium packaging. These cheeses are all made and aged in pretty much the same way, so why should we bother bringing in full wheels from Giorgio Cravero when we could buy Parmesan already nicely pre-cut and packed for far less per kilo? Or why should you as a customer go to the extra hassle of visiting a specialty shop and most likely paying more money for your Parmesan?

The answer is simple – buy a piece of pre-packed Parmesan and buy a freshly cut chunk from a good cheesemonger, taste and compare. We guarantee you will never want to buy pre-packed again. It is not only the effect of the cheese spending months wrapped in plastic rather than its natural breathing skin – we used to have our Cravero Parmesan pre-packed into 2kg and 4kg pieces for wholesaling to restaurants and small shops. But after sitting down and really comparing the two versions we stopped and now only sell freshly cut.

Plastic wrapping kills what’s brilliant about Parmesan. In addition, most of the pre-packed Parmesan comes from producers who are much more focused on producing cheese at the cheapest price rather than with the best flavour. Small short cuts and little differences add up to quite a different cheese.

The greatest rewards from opening a wheel of Parmigiano-Reggiano are the small chunks that drop to the table as the cheese first opens. Your nose is already full of sweet butter and hay aroma but then when you bite into a small chunk there is a crystallised crunch that, at the same time, melts slightly in your mouth. The taste is so rich – all of that milk condensed and transformed through long fermentation. You are given a burst of perfectly intermingled flavours – caramel, roasted hazelnuts, pineapple, butter and a little spice. All hail Parmigiano-Reggiano, the king of cheeses.

Extracted from Counter Culture: The Sheridans Guide to Cheese, by Kevin and Seamus Sheridan, with Catherine Cleary, published by Transworld Ireland, €19.95