Friday, October 24, 2008

Favorite Parmesan cheese

If you're like me, you grew up shaking powder out of a can onto your weekly spaghetti. That was good and everything, but there is a whole world of Parmesan cheeses out there. I've been reading "foodie" magazines and books for years now, and every single one of them raves about "real Parmesan cheese from Parma Italy with Parmesan Reggiano stamped on the rind." I'm here to tell you, save your $20/pound. (Seriously.) I've bought it a couple times and it is just not that great, certainly not great enough to justify the price. I've also tried the lookalikes--American imitation wedges (only $5-10/a pound!)--also not good. The stuff that comes in a bag from Kraft is pretty good, but the best is what you see above.
The new product you see is a marvel of food and plastic engineering. I'm sure the wedge of cheese in the container is not from Italy (although the packaging is--how much sense does that make??), but when freshly grated onto soup or pasta, it tastes great. And so easy--just turn the green dial on the bottom. If you turn it the wrong way (as I inevitably do), no worries--just turn it the right way for a while and the cheese will move down the spike on which it sits.
It's great--no grater to wash, only the amount of cheese you want, and fresh cheese every time. It lasts 3 weeks in the fridge once you open the pack (longer than either a regular wedge or the bag). As for price, I think it was $3-4,
Drawbacks--I haven't seen it at Fareway, and you do have to throw away a rather large hunk of plastic. Nothing's perfect!
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1 comment:

Unknown said...

I have never seen that, but I would love to try it.