CONNOISSEUR:PARMESAN IS AN easy cheese to identify. It's huge for a start, has an unmistakable orange crust to it, and many can recognise the knarled, fissure-laden interior and moist, flaky texture. There really is no other cheese quite like it. If you find a chunk of La Villa Parmesan that is sold in Country Choice in Nenagh, Co Tipperary, you will notice that it has an Irish provenance. Across the top it says: "Made by Peter and Mary Ward".
Bite into a chunk of this Reggiano and you are taken on a journey. There is sunshine there, hay, mountain air, love, balance, passion. Last summer I met the Wards when they were in Italy for their annual cheese-making expedition just outside Parma.
The evening milk flows into large pans where cream for butter and ricotta is taken off, reducing the fat content of the milk. In the morning the milk from the next milking is added, along with a little fermented whey from yesterday’s cheese. This mixture is heated and at the right time, rennet is added and the cheese curds immediately.
Speed is then of the essence. The curds must be chopped by hand using a whisk into small grains. The window is tight. The mixture is then reheated and the cheese forms a solid ball of around 90kg. This mass is then manhandled with a paddle into muslin and then broken into moulds that bear the name of the farm and the date of making.
When the cheeses have taken shape they are then transferred to a vat of brine where they stay for up to 15 days before being taken out to the storeroom and aged for 24 months. It is this ageing which is such a crucial part of the uniqueness of Parmesan. The rich organic milk proteins break down, culminating in amino acid crystals. This process makes Parmesan very easy to digest; a super-charged protein. A teaspoon of this cheese, for example, has the same amount of calcium as a 10oz glass of milk but without the fat.
Parmesan can be made intensively, or rather less so, as at La Villa. Here production is 25 per cent less than it is in on an intensive farm and all the feed for the animals is grown on site. The cows eat hay, not silage, and grains and legumes form part of their diet to give depth and character to the milk. It is a way of life that hasn’t changed much. The same equipment, the same processes, the same delicious cheese.
There are thousands of Parmesan makers and while to make Parmesan you must conform to certain regulations, there are huge variations. At La Villa, for example, they do not use chemical cleaners of any kind. What, they argue, is wrong with salt and boiling water? Not much, provided you use a lot of it and clean regularly. For centuries cheese-making has had to be very specific about its approach to good and bad bacteria. You need the good ones to make cheese, you keep the bad ones at bay by being very, very good at what you do. That means being clean and obsessively so; rigorous hygiene is not new.
On Thursdays locals come to buy the fresh ricotta, a by-product of Parmesan. This is another old-fashioned delight that has to be really fresh to deliver its inherent subtleties. You can eat ricotta with honey – also sold on the farm – but the real delight is to fashion it into Tortella alla Erbeta – lacy pasta parcels filled with spinach, ricotta and dressed with sage butter.
La Villa Parmesan is available from Country Choice in Nenagh; Ballymaloe Cookery School in Midleton; Nash 19 in Cork; Gleeson’s Townhouse in Roscommon and URRU in Bandon. In Dublin it is available at Fallon and Byrne; Donnybrook Fair; Wilde and Green; Get Fresh and Caviston’s.