The Small Town Where Beloved Parmesan Cheese Got Its Start – The New York Times

What Americans refer to as parm is arguably not true Parmigiano Reggiano. Kraft Heinz, for example, has been selling “Parmesan cheese” in a plastic bottle for decades. Although the product became a staple for some Americans, the company has received complaints and even faced lawsuits from consumers who argued that the cheese product isn’t made up purely of cheese but rather is mixed with cellulose. In 2021, Kraft Heinz sold its Parmesan cheese product to Lactalis, a French-based dairy company.Although it’s common for food lovers to think of flavor or experience as a driving force behind the popularization of certain foods, Tia Keenan, a cheese expert and author, pointed out that the popularity of many foods in the United States is determined by logistics. A large part of Parmigiano Reggiano’s popularity in the United States can be attributed to waves of Italian immigrants moving to America. “Parmesan Reggiano has always been in the U.S., as long as you’ve had Italian immigrants here,” Roller said.The cheese’s large, hard, aged qualities lend themselves to portability and a long shelf life, and therefore travel. Parmigiano Reggiano has been imported in some quantity “since the earliest days of the American colonial project,” Keenan said, referring to the cheese as a “sturdy ambassador.”Along with maintaining a large global fan base, Parmigiano Reggiano is a financial superstar. The cheese’s entry into the culinary world made banking and capital investment possible in Italy and helped fund the Renaissance, making it quite likely “the first and only” cheese to serve as a scaffold for centuries of cultural and economic growth, Keenan said.Cheese experts say Parmigiano Reggiano dates to around the 14th century, but it became more regulated in the 1900s. In 1901, the Chamber of Commerce of Reggio Emilia proposed the creation of a trade union among cheese producers and cheese traders in an effort to authenticate the origin of Parmigiano Reggiano that was set to be exported. Now, more than 100 years later, producers belong to the Parmigiano Reggiano Consortium, a body that governs all things Parmigiano Reggiano. The consortium controls exactly how anything sold as Parmigiano Reggiano is made, Roller said.