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Earlier this year, Mariana Giusti, a

0:40

journalist at the Financial Times, wrote a viral

0:42

article about food. The name

0:44

of the article was, Everything

0:47

I, an Italian, thought I knew about

0:49

Italian food is a lie.

0:52

Mariana had been feeling aggravated by

0:54

the preciousness around Italian food

0:56

for years. As an Italian living

0:58

abroad, I think you're doubly subject

1:01

to the huge projections around Italian

1:03

food. All the fads, all

1:05

the tropes, you know, from how

1:08

carbonara is this

1:10

ancient, ancient, sacred,

1:13

almost Roman recipe, to

1:15

how pizza has a similar

1:18

godlike perfection.

1:20

A friend told Mariana she should check out the

1:22

work of Alberto Grandi, an Italian

1:25

historian, author, podcaster,

1:27

and general rabble-rouser. As

1:29

soon as she did, she knew she had to write

1:31

an article about him.

1:33

She also put us in touch. I

1:35

am an economic history teacher

1:38

in the University of Parma. Not

1:40

teacher. Professor.

1:43

Professor. Yes. OK. Grandi

1:45

studies how traditions are invented. And

1:47

when he started looking at the history of many quintessentially

1:50

Italian foods, well, he found

1:53

a lot of inventions. He spoke

1:55

to me with the help of a translator.

1:56

By teaching. he

2:00

found out all these stories

2:02

about Italian food being

2:05

myth and legend, so

2:08

he became interested in debunking

2:10

that.

2:11

Take a food like pasta carbonara.

2:16

It's widely thought to be an historic dish

2:19

from Rome, but actually in 1944,

2:22

an Italian chef making a meal for

2:24

members of the U.S. Army used the rich

2:26

cream milk butter and bacon

2:28

of that army to whip up

2:30

a new pasta.

2:32

And that's how it was born. Grandy's

2:34

done similar debunkings with tiramisu,

2:36

panettone, cheese pizza and olive

2:39

oil, which she says wasn't popular before

2:41

the 1950s.

2:42

People in southern Italy used

2:44

olive oil for lamps, not

2:46

to eat. Get out of here. OK, OK. Needless

2:50

to say, Grandy's work is controversial,

2:53

especially in Italy. Mariana

2:56

saw that firsthand when she interviewed him

2:58

at a restaurant in Parma, a city in the

3:00

north central part of the country. Genuinely,

3:03

there are a lot of people there who disagree with him.

3:05

So he was literally checking behind

3:07

him as we spoke, being like, man,

3:09

people hate me here. People hate him

3:12

there because it's a bastion of Italian

3:14

cuisine. Prosciutto de Parma is from

3:16

there. Parmalot, the industrial

3:18

food giant, is too. And

3:20

of course, it's the home of parmesan

3:23

cheese. More specifically, Parma

3:25

is the center of the only region

3:28

in the world that makes parmesan reggiano,

3:31

those big, blonde wheels of

3:33

cheese you see at gourmet food stores

3:36

that have an official trademark stamped into

3:38

their sides.

3:39

You can make parmesan elsewhere, but

3:41

there are restrictions. Like here, you

3:43

can't call the American made

3:46

version parmesan reggiano.

3:48

It has to be labeled parmesan.

3:51

Basically, parmesan reggiano is

3:53

a brand, and parmesan is just

3:55

a cheese. And that's why

3:57

what Grandy has to say about parmesan.

3:59

is so surprising. So

4:06

what he said is, I always say,

4:08

we have the best parmigiano

4:11

ever, but if you want to eat the original parmigiano

4:15

like our great-great parents used to eat, you

4:17

should go to Milwaukee or Madison.

4:19

Yeah. Alberto Grandi

4:21

says if you want to know what real Italian

4:24

Parmesan tastes like, the kind that

4:26

was made 100 years

4:27

ago, you should go

4:29

to Wisconsin.

4:39

This is Decoder Ring. I'm Willa Paskin.

4:42

I've walked right by Wisconsin Parmesan

4:44

hundreds of times while grocery shopping.

4:46

It's a staple of American supermarkets.

4:50

And I've always assumed it was air sacs,

4:52

a pale copy, more affordable

4:55

but not as good as the crumbly

4:57

rich Italian real thing. Have

5:00

I been snubbing a delicacy? In

5:03

this episode, we'll follow Parmesan as

5:05

it crisscrosses the Atlantic,

5:07

tracing a history that involves intrepid

5:09

immigrants, lucrative businesses,

5:11

a green shaker of cheese, and

5:14

the craving for tradition and identity.

5:18

Parmesan is a food, but it's not just

5:21

a food. So

5:23

today on Decoder Ring, we think

5:25

the unthinkable. Could Wisconsin

5:28

Parmesan be more authentic

5:30

than what you might get in Italy?

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6:28

When Wisconsin became a state in 1848, Parmesan

6:31

was already 600 years old. Emilia

6:35

Romagna's medieval monks, hungry

6:37

for a long-lasting cheese, invented

6:40

Parmigiano.

6:41

That's the actor Stanley Tucci in

6:43

his sumptuous travel series, Searching

6:45

for Italy. Thank God for them. In

6:48

this episode, he's visiting the Italian

6:50

region of Emilia Romagna, which

6:52

sprawls across north-central Italy.

6:55

It's one of the country's wealthiest areas,

6:57

with a rich culinary and cultural tradition.

7:00

Its cities include Bologna, Modena,

7:02

the home of balsamic vinegar, and Parma,

7:05

all of which dapple the Po River Valley,

7:08

where Parmesan was first

7:09

made. Smell, smell, smell.

7:11

This is, the smelling is unbelievable.

7:13

The smell is unbelievable. The 13th and 14th

7:16

century monks who first made the cheese from

7:18

their cow's milk got so good at it, they

7:20

soon had enough to sell. And Parmesan

7:22

became an early European luxury

7:25

food, eaten and admired by the likes

7:27

of Henry VIII, Thomas Jefferson,

7:29

and Benjamin Franklin. In the

7:32

1930s, a consortium of producers and traders

7:34

began to oversee the so-called King

7:37

of Cheese. They demarcated

7:39

an area around the cities of Parma and

7:41

Reggio Emilia and essentially trademarked

7:44

the cheese coming out of that region

7:46

as Parmigiano Reggiano. It

7:49

has since become an Italian export

7:51

par excellence. It's known

7:54

and celebrated all over

7:56

the world for, among other things,

7:58

the traditional magic.

7:59

manner in which it is made. For 1,000

8:02

years, nothing has changed. Everything

8:07

is same.

8:08

Perhaps the pork is a little bit bigger.

8:10

Perhaps the machines, the mix is a little bit

8:12

bigger. But ritual is exactly

8:15

the same. There

8:16

are all sorts of quaint aspects to the

8:18

parmesan-making process in Italy you would never

8:21

see in America, like a cutting

8:23

tool called a spino or how workers

8:25

gather the early cheese in almost a cheesecloth

8:28

hammock to drain it over copper

8:30

vats. There's even a special metal

8:33

hammer.

8:35

It's used to knock on the aging cheese wheels

8:37

to gauge whether they're developing properly. And

8:40

this is the good sound, so it means

8:42

it's solid, there's no pockets, no air pockets.

8:45

And this whole process takes time. An

8:47

official parmigiano reggiano must be aged

8:50

for at least two years and many are

8:52

aged for longer.

8:53

The result is a coarse, almost grainy

8:55

cheese, flecked with white crystals, that

8:57

has a salty, nutty intensity.

9:00

But like good wines, no two wheels

9:02

will be exactly the same. The

9:05

global market for these golden fromages

9:07

is about $1.5 billion. And

9:10

at more than $500 a pop, these 72-pound cheeses are worth stealing.

9:17

In 30 years on the force, Alessandro

9:19

Vicari has never seen a wave of

9:21

robberies like this. This

9:24

cheese can be quite valuable.

9:26

Yes, cheese. These are the

9:28

streets of Reggio Emilia, Italy,

9:31

home to Parmesan.

9:32

No offense to Wisconsin parmigiano,

9:34

but I have not heard of anyone trying to make

9:37

off with it. Because it's so much easier

9:39

to produce, generic parmigiano is much

9:41

cheaper than parmigiano reggiano, but

9:43

there's also a lot more of it. The

9:45

global market for plain old parmigiano is $16

9:48

billion, and Wisconsin

9:51

alone makes 83 million

9:53

pounds of the stuff.

9:54

83 million pounds that Alberto

9:57

Grandi says come out of a venerable

9:59

tradition. And before getting

10:01

into the details of that tradition, I just

10:04

want to tell you a little more about him. Like

10:06

that he has a lot of academic

10:08

backup. There's a lot

10:11

of scholarship out there about Italian food,

10:13

which has a complicated history going

10:15

back centuries. Tomatoes and pasta

10:18

are famously not from Italy. And

10:20

generally speaking, Grandi's work builds

10:23

on and is broadly in line with that

10:25

of his peers.

10:27

He's not the first or only expert

10:29

to debunk legends about carbonara

10:31

or olive oil or tiramisu,

10:34

though he may be the only one with

10:36

a podcast.

10:44

And this, I think, is what really sets

10:46

him apart. Just how willing he is to

10:48

talk about all of these things publicly.

10:51

Do you think of yourself as a

10:53

contrarian? Do you like to? I

10:56

sort of sometimes like this myself. But

10:58

do you like to just be like, no,

11:00

no, no, this is the truth. Or

11:03

is it

11:04

just in your scholarship? Both. He

11:07

says, I like conflict. I

11:11

used to be in politics and I was famous

11:13

for fighting all the time. But

11:15

also I'm a historian and

11:18

accuracy is very

11:20

important. And now

11:22

I feel more honest with myself.

11:26

Grandi's background in politics is

11:28

also relevant because his debunkings are

11:31

political. For example, just a couple

11:33

of years ago, in 2019, the

11:35

Archbishop of Bologna wanted to offer

11:38

tortellini without pork filling at

11:40

a city celebration so that Muslim residents

11:42

could participate. But a far-right

11:44

political leader declared pork-free tortellini

11:47

an attempt to, quote, erase our history

11:49

and culture. Grandi then publicly

11:52

pointed out that tortellini didn't even

11:54

contain pork until the late 19th

11:56

century.

11:56

So he's not just being

11:58

contrarian for the hell of it.

12:01

Keep this all in mind as we turn

12:03

back to Parmesan, a food that's deliciousness

12:06

and reputation is totally

12:09

tangled up with tradition.

12:11

Can he tell me the story about Parmesan

12:13

and then tell me where where Anthony's

12:16

eating it? I want to know.

12:17

The story of American parmesan

12:19

goes back to roughly

12:24

a hundred years ago when the

12:27

Italian immigrants in between

12:29

the two wars found themselves

12:31

in America and headed to what

12:34

they heard was the dairy state,

12:36

so Wisconsin, and started

12:38

making cheese that was similar

12:41

to Parmigiano. What happened is over

12:44

the years starting from the 60s in Italy,

12:46

Parmigiano had an evolution that

12:49

made them what they are today while

12:52

the Wisconsin Parmesan stayed

12:55

more or less true to the original

12:57

recipe.

12:58

Granny says the Italian stuff used to be softer

13:01

and have more fat and that it looked different

13:03

too. Completely black. He means

13:05

the rind was totally black instead

13:08

of the deep yellow with all of those markings

13:10

on it you see on a Parmigiano reggiano today.

13:13

It wasn't

13:13

real. It was like a cylinder.

13:15

It was tall and it was smaller. He

13:18

told me the name of a Wisconsin company

13:20

he thought was making a Parmesan like this.

13:23

It's called Sartori.

13:24

Sartori was founded in 1939. It

13:27

is now a fourth generation company

13:29

headquartered between Milwaukee and Green

13:31

Bay. It sells a variety of cheeses

13:33

that are available in your local supermarket

13:36

and also in 72 countries

13:38

worldwide. And if you go to

13:40

their website, you can see how different

13:42

Sartori's Parmesan is from contemporary

13:45

Italian Parmigiano reggiano.

13:48

It's smaller with that black

13:50

rind and it appears to have a

13:52

different

13:53

texture too. Frankly,

13:55

I

13:56

had to have it. The

13:58

idea that there is a Parmesan

13:59

being made in the Midwest right

14:02

now that is somehow more authentic

14:04

than the one being made in the country that

14:07

birthed, protects, and celebrates

14:09

it? Gimme. So

14:12

I ordered the Parmesan to be shipped to my house and

14:14

dove into what I thought was going to be the history

14:17

of a food, but turned out to be,

14:20

as everything always is, a history

14:23

of people. We'll be right back.

14:29

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The

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Kennedys were one of the most calculated

15:37

and orchestrated American families ever

15:40

to live, but their biggest accomplishment

15:42

was something they never saw coming.

15:46

JFK was never meant to be precedent.

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Set against the

15:49

glamorous backdrop of the 1940s, 50s, and 60s, we, sisters

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and co-hosts, I'm Bethany by the way, and

15:56

I'm Cassie, trace the steps of the family

15:58

that influenced generation.

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in a dramatic and riveting year-long

16:02

investigation. Cover-ups, FBI

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files, murder, the mafia, the

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a brutal and high-stakes world, blood

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or wherever

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you get your podcasts. Blood

16:32

and business is back with a powerful and haunting

16:34

story that stays with you long after you've

16:36

listened.

16:40

So with the intriguing Wisconsin Parmesan

16:42

in the mail, I dove in on how Wisconsin

16:45

and Parmesan even became two words

16:47

you could say right next to each other and have

16:49

them make sense.

16:50

It all has to do with taste inventiveness

16:53

and the business acumen of Italian immigrants.

16:56

My name is Simone Cinotto, and I

16:58

teach modern history at the University of

17:00

Gastronomic Sciences in Polenso,

17:03

Italy.

17:04

Simone Cinotto is the author of, among

17:07

other books, the Italian-American table,

17:09

and he, too, is full of fascinating,

17:12

counterintuitive facts about Italian

17:14

staples.

17:14

Even the tomato, which

17:17

is the icon of, of course,

17:19

is an American plant, got

17:21

to Italy quite early. In the early 1500s. Because

17:25

Italy, most of Italy, was part of the Spanish

17:27

Empire.

17:28

And for 300 years, nobody cared. You

17:31

know, it was like, it was not even considered

17:33

a food.

17:34

Anyway, back to the immigrants.

17:37

New York

17:37

City has a port of arrival

17:39

of three and a half million

17:42

of Italians between the late

17:44

19th century and the early 20th.

17:46

From New York, some of these millions of immigrants

17:48

moved onto cities like Chicago and Philadelphia.

17:51

Many of them were from southern Italy and spoke

17:53

only regional dialects. Italy had

17:56

only become a unified nation in 1861, and

17:59

they weren't necessarily-

17:59

even have identified as Italian.

18:02

They had also been very poor. They

18:05

were coming from homes with dirt floors, no

18:07

running water, and a fireplace to cook over.

18:09

Their diet was heavy in vegetables they could grow

18:11

themselves, and meat was a

18:13

luxury. So now, imagine

18:15

these people transport in New York.

18:18

They could not grow their food anymore or,

18:20

you know, attend their animals. In

18:22

America, they had to start doing something they

18:25

had never really done before,

18:27

buy their food, which

18:29

at least now they could

18:30

afford to do. The food

18:33

that the American food industry

18:35

provided them, even if they

18:37

were poor, okay? So

18:41

the white flour, the butter,

18:43

the eggs, coffee and sugar,

18:46

and beef,

18:48

beef and pork, which was something that

18:51

was really special occasion for

18:53

them back in Southern

18:56

Italy.

18:58

Using these newly accessible ingredients, Southern

19:01

Italian women started to reimagine dishes from

19:04

back home, and in the process

19:06

began to create Italian-American

19:09

Red Sauce Cuisine, in which abundance

19:11

itself is a kind of ingredient. Think

19:14

of restaurants with red-checked tablecloths serving

19:17

fried chicken cutlets the size of plates

19:19

and baked pastas slathered

19:22

in cheese. But what Cinotto

19:24

was sure to stress was that it wasn't

19:27

just American largesse

19:28

that fueled this new

19:30

cuisine. See, food companies

19:33

in Italy started exporting products of

19:35

the Italian diaspora, things

19:38

like canned tomatoes and durum wheat

19:40

pasta, which many of the newly

19:42

arrived immigrants had never seen

19:45

before, products that helped create

19:47

a sense of identity.

19:50

The importers had

19:52

all the interest in convincing the

19:54

immigrants that they could prove

19:56

to be Italian, actually for the

19:58

first time.

19:59

with buying the products.

20:02

Meanwhile, immigrants

20:04

were sending money back to their families,

20:07

and a lot of these products were becoming more affordable

20:09

and available not just in America,

20:12

but in Italy itself. And

20:14

Italian cheese was part of this

20:16

back and forth,

20:17

too. By the 1920s,

20:19

America was importing about 40 to 45

20:23

million pounds of it annually. And

20:25

Italian immigrants in the U.S. were

20:28

about to start making cheese in

20:30

their new country.

20:32

And the center of that new industry

20:35

was going to be in... Yep,

20:38

you got it. Some people call

20:40

it America's Dairyland, but no

20:42

matter what name we give it, Wisconsin

20:44

offers a countryside of rolling green

20:46

hills...

20:47

I know that Wisconsin has a long and

20:50

proud dairy tradition. And makes many

20:52

excellent cheeses, though it's probably best

20:54

known for its cheddar, its squeaky cheese curds,

20:57

and the giant yellow foam cheese

20:59

wedges that adorn the heads of Packers

21:01

football fans. But Wisconsin

21:03

parmesan is a little niche.

21:06

And I needed a guide.

21:07

I found one in Mike Maticecki.

21:10

I am a retired master

21:13

cheesemaker. I mastered

21:15

in parmesan, Romano, Nasiago.

21:18

Mike is a Wisconsinite born and

21:20

raised, and he's been around cheese his whole

21:22

life. My grandparents had

21:25

a dairy farm just outside of Annagawa,

21:27

Wisconsin, where I would visit all the time. He

21:30

started making Italian-style cheese in the early

21:33

1990s and spent much of his career at Sartori,

21:35

the company that makes the parmesan I had ordered

21:37

in the mail and was by now waiting

21:40

in my fridge. Mike traveled extensively

21:42

in Italy. He's intimately familiar with the distinctions

21:45

between the parmesan process here and there.

21:48

And he's also a bit of a history buff. It's

21:50

Mike who put me on to the man who seems to

21:52

have been instrumental in first

21:54

bringing parmesan to Wisconsin. A

21:57

man named...it's

21:59

so good.

24:00

Sartori, who eventually left and founded

24:02

a cheese company that would become,

24:04

yes, Sartori, the company

24:06

who made the Parmesan loitering

24:08

in my fridge.

24:11

So let's take stock for a second. You

24:13

have Poe Valley immigrants thriving

24:16

in Wisconsin by recreating

24:18

Italian Parmesan.

24:20

Grandi's story about Wisconsin Parmesan

24:22

being the real deal was checking

24:25

out. It was time to take this storied

24:27

Wisconsin parm

24:29

and put it to a taste test.

24:31

We'll be right back.

24:34

Sex in the

24:36

City is iconic. The

24:39

fashions. But

24:42

this is an outfit. The

24:45

romances. Ladies, I'm

24:47

taking a lover. Yes, a

24:50

lover. The fights. I'm

24:53

out of here. All

24:55

we talk about anymore is big or balls

24:58

or small dicks. And

25:02

of course, the questions. I

25:04

couldn't help but wonder. After

25:08

six seasons and two movies, Carrie,

25:11

Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha hung up

25:13

their Jimmy Choo's for a decade.

25:14

But last year, they came

25:17

back. Well, most of them

25:19

came back. Love It or Hate It, season

25:21

one of HBO's and just like that caused

25:24

quite a stir. Whether it was the

25:26

death of a very big character.

25:29

My husband died. Death. The

25:31

ultimate breakup. Carrie's new

25:33

role as a podcaster. I still

25:35

haven't listened to it, have you? Carrie,

25:37

I love you to death, but

25:40

I draw the line at podcasts.

25:41

The omission of

25:43

Samantha. You know, it is kind

25:45

of like she's dead, Samantha. We

25:48

never even talk about her. You're the

25:50

Che Diaz

25:51

of it all. You're

25:52

not happy with who you are? Step out of that box

25:55

and change it. We

25:57

couldn't stop thinking about and just

25:59

like that. Now, Carrie, Miranda,

26:01

and Charlotte are coming back for a second season,

26:04

and The Waves is going to be covering it all.

26:07

Every week, SlatePlus members will get a very

26:09

special And Just Like That recap episode,

26:12

hosted by myself, Shaina Roth, and

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a very exciting lineup of your favorite

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26:18

Luke Wilkie, and Heather Schwedell. Look

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in The Waves' feed. And if you're

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not a SlatePlus member, you can join

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now by going to slate.com slash

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waves plus to get all these special

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episodes, along with tons of other

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bonus goodies. Slate.com

26:36

slash the waves plus.

26:45

So remember what Alberto Grandi said. Italian

26:47

immigrants had gone to Wisconsin, started

26:49

making Parmesan there, and it hadn't

26:53

While Parmesan in Italy had.

26:55

Now I can't go back in time 100 years

26:58

to taste either, but I could

27:00

taste the current versions side

27:02

by side to see if I could learn something.

27:05

So Katie Shepard, Dakota Ring's producer,

27:08

and I went to Bushwick, Brooklyn to do just

27:10

that. We visited

27:12

a store called Foster Sundry. It's

27:14

a cafe

27:15

and upscale grocery that sits

27:17

on the corner of a street where bars and

27:19

coffee shops rub shoulders with dollar stores

27:21

and bodegas. It's got big

27:23

glass windows and a long, well-stocked

27:26

cheese counter. And it's a butcher, too. They

27:29

were turning half a pig into sausages

27:31

while we were there.

27:32

We arrived. We headed down a slippery metal

27:34

staircase to the basement and headed into

27:37

an office underneath the stairs, right

27:39

near the dishwasher, where there was a desk with

27:41

enough space to lay out some cheese.

27:43

It's a hot, airless room. I

27:47

think the Wi-Fi router is under here somewhere. And

27:49

we are we're about to taste

27:51

some Parmesan, some Parmesan.

27:54

That's Aaron Foster, the owner. He's

27:57

been a cheese monger for 20 years, among

27:59

other things.

27:59

he's opened the cheese counters at two very

28:02

high profile Whole Foods in New York City and

28:04

studied at the Slow Food Institute in Italy.

28:07

One of the employees at Foster Sundry had put together

28:09

a blind cheese tasting for us. Two

28:12

plates laden with eight different parmesans

28:14

in all shades of yellow. Of

28:17

those, one was a parmigiano

28:19

reggiano and one was the sartori

28:21

parmesan.

28:22

We didn't know which was which. So

28:25

yeah, you bring it up close to your face, you smell it, you

28:27

kind of, you're pinching it in your fingers a little bit, your fingers

28:29

are going to get greasy. Pinching it, that's so fun

28:31

to pinch cheese. We tried

28:33

all eight parmesans, but I'm going to focus on

28:35

the two this whole test was set

28:38

up for. The first of those was a craggy

28:40

hunk of pale crumbly cheese with

28:42

some white flecks in it that sure looked

28:44

like a parmigiano reggiano.

28:46

So I get more, like a more floral,

28:50

maybe even like... This is like parmigiano. Tomato water,

28:52

yeah, this is parmigiano. Not only

28:54

is it parmigiano, it's good parmigiano.

28:57

Yeah.

28:59

I hope that it's good

29:01

parmigiano. Remember,

29:03

this was a blind taste test, so we were a

29:05

little worried about being overconfident. It's

29:08

young, it's on the younger side. Mm hmm. It's

29:11

still quite moist. Yeah, the

29:13

texture is also just so much better. Right? So

29:16

what's better about it? It's not wax. It's like crumblier. Yeah.

29:19

And then there was the other cheese, a perfectly

29:21

smooth isosceles triangle.

29:25

Unremarkable appearance. Weird,

29:28

very sweet, and then some weird packaging

29:31

taste, right? Yeah, it's

29:33

so different from anything we've

29:35

had so far. Whoo! It

29:38

is very sweet. It is very sweet.

29:41

So yeah, the first cheese you heard us tasting was

29:44

a parmigiano reggiano. I love

29:46

it, it's great. I never don't have parmigiano

29:48

in my fridge. And when I say parmigiano,

29:51

just to be clear, parmigiano reggiano.

29:53

And the other, somewhat disappointing

29:55

cheese was the sartori parmigiano.

29:58

The black rind it had come in had peeled right away.

29:59

off. Oh, I did. I nailed Sartori.

30:02

You did nail Sartori. I

30:04

gotta say tasting these two cheeses side

30:06

by side made it hard to believe that Italian

30:09

Parmesan had ever tasted

30:11

like today's Sartori. So

30:13

smooth and so sweet. They

30:16

were just so different.

30:18

All my research had convinced me that these

30:20

two cheeses had a hundred years ago

30:23

been going for the same thing. How

30:25

would they diverge so dramatically?

30:29

And where did that leave Alberto Grandi's

30:31

claim about Wisconsin Parmesan?

30:33

That it was the one that tasted most

30:36

like that a hundred year old ancestor?

30:38

Well, as I would find out, the

30:41

answer to these questions could be found

30:43

in what happened on both sides

30:46

of the Atlantic

30:47

that turned Parmesan into a multi-billion

30:50

dollar business.

30:55

So if the wave of Italian immigration

30:57

at the turn of the 20th century brought

30:59

Parmesan to America, what happened

31:02

after World War II changed it

31:04

further and not just in America.

31:07

Stefano Magagnoli is a professor

31:09

of economic history at the University

31:11

of Parma, and he has written extensively

31:14

about Parmigiano Regiano. He's

31:16

also friends with Alberto Grandi. He

31:19

explained to me that prior to the 1950s, Parmigiano

31:23

was relatively unknown in the

31:25

southern

31:25

part of Italy. Parmigiano Regiano

31:28

cheese became

31:32

popular, well famous

31:34

worldwide

31:36

only after the Second World War

31:38

when Italy

31:41

experienced the economic

31:43

miracle. The economic miracle

31:45

is what happened to Italy after

31:47

the war, when it went through tremendous

31:49

growth and millions of Italians

31:52

became middle class in a hurry. This

31:54

was obviously good, but Italians

31:56

had just lived through multiple periods of incredible

31:59

disruption. corruption, from poverty to war

32:02

to dizzying growth. And

32:04

in this kind of chaos, tradition,

32:07

or just the idea of it, becomes

32:09

very alluring. It was during

32:11

this time that a number of dishes

32:13

came to be seen as traditionally

32:16

Italian, even though they had only

32:18

been created or popularized

32:21

thanks to the new and newly affordable

32:23

ingredients the economic miracle

32:26

provided. Like the aforementioned

32:28

carbonara and tiramisu,

32:29

which is made with a supermarket

32:32

cookie first introduced in 1948. Parmigiano-Reggiano

32:37

also became far more widespread

32:39

at this time as the consortium of producers

32:42

and traders that oversees it began

32:45

advertising.

32:47

The first advertising after

32:50

the war in the 1950s,

32:53

more or less, said that

32:55

the Parmigiano-Reggiano is made

32:58

as it was made seven

33:00

century ago.

33:02

Of course, it is not true. It

33:04

was a marketing way

33:07

to attract and to communicate

33:10

the idea of tradition.

33:12

No one is trying to insult Parmigiano-Reggiano

33:15

to dethrone the king of cheese. But

33:18

of course, it's not being made the way

33:21

monks in the 13th century did.

33:23

They didn't have electricity and running water and

33:25

copper vats and a million other things.

33:29

More to the point, it's not being made exactly

33:31

how it was when the consortium first standardized

33:34

in the 1930s when the process

33:36

was barely industrialized. And

33:38

one very visible example of this is

33:40

the black rind Alberto Grandi

33:42

mentioned and that Stefano Magagnoli

33:45

confirms the cheese used to have.

33:48

Magagnoli says this color formed

33:50

naturally on the surface of the cheese.

33:53

But then in 1963, the consortium

33:55

decided to start scraping it off so

33:58

they could leave markings directly on the cheese.

33:59

on the now-blond rind to

34:02

make it harder to counterfeit.

34:04

Every two, three weeks, they

34:07

have to use a tool

34:09

to remove the fat from the surface

34:12

of the whelp.

34:13

The consortium changed the cheese to

34:15

keep control of it, to help grow

34:17

it into a bigger and bigger business.

34:20

Meanwhile, in America, something

34:23

else was changing for Parmesan in

34:25

the post-war period.

34:28

The people eating it.

34:35

When Italian immigrants had first arrived

34:38

earlier in the century, they were derided

34:40

as swarthy, dark garlic eaters.

34:43

But as they became assimilated, so

34:45

did their food.

34:52

By the 1950s,

34:54

you have Dean Martin, born Dino

34:57

Crocetti in Ohio, crooning

34:59

about all things Italian.

35:00

You have Disney's

35:03

Lady and the Tramp smooching over a shared

35:05

piece of spaghetti, pizza spreading out

35:08

of cities and into the heartland, and frozen

35:10

lasagna, too. Magazines had

35:12

to teach people how to pronounce these words.

35:15

These new mass-produced products

35:17

made it possible for everyone to bring

35:19

a little bit of Italy into their kitchen.

35:21

Like this 1950s Chef Boyardee

35:24

spaghetti sauce.

35:25

Because the recipe for this tangy

35:27

sauce has been brought over from Italy by

35:29

this famous Italian chef. But as

35:31

more and more of these Italian-inflected

35:34

products flooded the market, it turned

35:36

out they didn't really have to taste Italian

35:39

or even particularly good.

35:42

Do you remember when you first tasted

35:44

Parmesan? Oh,

35:46

of course I do, and it was horrible. The first

35:48

Parmesan I ever tasted in my life

35:50

was grated Parmesan

35:53

in that green can

35:56

that set K-R-A-F-T on it.

35:58

It smelled like baby barf. Mike

36:00

Maticecki is referring to the green can

36:02

of pre-grated parmesan made by

36:04

craft that doesn't even have to be

36:06

refrigerated. These craft

36:09

canisters became available after World

36:11

War II and were a staple

36:13

of American life, nearly as

36:15

recognizable as a Campbell's soup can and

36:18

advertised all over TV,

36:20

as in this ad from 1969.

36:22

Think we're only good on Italian

36:24

food. Think we're only good

36:27

on Italian food, this blown

36:29

out sounding commercial says. Then it shows

36:31

the green can being shaken over soup, salads

36:33

and pizza and finishes with the line,

36:36

craft parmesan is as American as

36:39

pizza pie.

36:40

Italian Americans had created the domestic

36:42

market for parmesan, but now an

36:45

American company was selling a

36:47

homogenized version to the rest of the

36:49

country as simply American

36:52

food.

36:53

And it didn't stop there. Burger

36:55

King's brought back their real parmesan sandwich. They

36:57

say it tastes so authentic, it'll turn you Italian.

37:00

I say no way.

37:03

But by the 1970s and

37:05

80s, Italians had something to say about

37:07

this Americanization of parm.

37:10

The Parmigiano-Reggiano consortium

37:13

and famous cookbook authors like Marcella

37:15

Hazan began to tell Americans

37:18

this cheese they thought was parmesan

37:20

was not very good and

37:22

they should try the real thing. There

37:25

are waves of articles about Parmigiano's

37:28

pronunciation and virtues. How

37:30

excellent it is, how gourmet, how

37:33

actually authentic.

37:35

By the time Mike Maticecki started

37:37

at Sartori in the 1990s, they were not

37:39

following some old handed

37:42

down recipe. They were experimenting,

37:45

trying to navigate these new

37:47

circumstances. They wanted to make

37:49

something yummier than the pre-graded

37:52

parmesan, but their customers weren't

37:54

necessarily familiar with the taste

37:56

of Parmigiano-Reggiano. They hadn't

37:59

grown up eating it.

37:59

So Tori needed to make something up

38:02

to their standards that pleased consumers

38:04

too.

38:07

There's always a battle between the cheeses for,

38:09

you know, who's better or whatever. It's

38:11

just like, well, people in different

38:14

places have different tastes.

38:16

Mike actually laughed at

38:18

the idea that the Parmesan being made

38:20

in Wisconsin hadn't changed over

38:22

the decades. It absolutely

38:25

has. And it's become its own

38:28

thing. Wisconsin

38:30

Parmesan.

38:31

Like under

38:33

Sartori, we found that

38:36

our customers tended

38:38

to prefer our

38:40

cheese because of its own attributes,

38:43

that it was sweeter and

38:45

fruitier and less salty

38:48

than Reggiano. Mike explained

38:50

that the black rind on Sartori was meant

38:52

to appeal to customers too. It's

38:54

actually not a rind. It's a decorative

38:57

wax that is put on late in the process.

39:00

It's meant to make it look like what Parmesan

39:03

looked like back when Count Bolognese

39:05

was making it. It's meant to make

39:07

it look traditional, but in

39:09

the Italian American Wisconsin

39:12

way.

39:13

Not that Mike can't appreciate a good

39:15

traditionally made Italian cheese.

39:18

We were talking, he started reminiscing about

39:20

one he'd eaten in Italy.

39:22

There was this nine year

39:24

old Reggiano who was just like, oh my

39:26

God, it was just amazing.

39:28

Absolutely amazing. One of the best

39:31

cheeses I ever had in my life. But

39:33

it's nine years old. And you would

39:36

never see that cheese in the United States. Absolutely

39:39

never. You would never see that

39:41

cheese in America because it just takes too

39:43

long to make. It wouldn't pay.

39:46

There isn't really a market for high end American

39:48

Parmesan. Italy's got that cornered.

39:51

This sort of thing came up a lot talking with Mike

39:54

how different business models have produced

39:56

different kinds of Parmesan. Simply

39:59

put. Parmigiano Reggiano is a gourmet

40:02

product that commands gourmet prices.

40:05

Parmesan in the U.S. is an industrial

40:07

product made faster and in vaster

40:09

quantities. That means it's more affordable

40:12

and reaches more people. They're

40:15

both very successful products,

40:18

but they are also very different

40:20

cheeses.

40:23

Do you have a preference? I know

40:25

that's maybe a loaded question, but... Well,

40:28

of course that's a loaded question. My own cheese

40:30

is the best, right? Okay. In

40:33

Wisconsin, taste the reason

40:35

the dairy states our name.

40:39

In Wisconsin, ah,

40:41

Wisconsin, taste our...

40:43

I had one more thing to do. I

40:45

was in San Jose, and I was walking

40:47

in the middle of the night. So,

40:49

yes, I reached back out to Alberto

40:51

Grandi to tell him that I had unintentionally

40:54

outcontrarianed a contrarian

40:57

and that he was wrong.

40:58

Wisconsin Parm is not the same cheese

41:01

it was 100 years ago. And though

41:03

its Italian cousin, Parmigiano Reggiano,

41:06

is different too,

41:08

it's less different.

41:09

He still insisted that Wisconsin Parmesan looks

41:12

more like that ancestor than Italian

41:14

Parmigiano does thanks

41:15

to that black wax. But

41:17

he was otherwise a very good sport.

41:20

He basically agrees with Mike Maticecki

41:22

that it's all about different people in different

41:25

places having different tastes and

41:27

how all of this adds up to create

41:29

something authentic to them.

41:32

The

41:32

whole thing is different from the story.

41:35

So, ultimately what I wanted

41:37

to underline is this absurd

41:39

pretense that Italians have to

41:42

plant an Italian flag on Parmesan

41:44

and say, like, you shouldn't even call it

41:46

Parmesan because they are clearly

41:48

different cheeses with clearly

41:51

different markets and different prices

41:53

and different tastes.

41:55

There's a real irony to what Grandi

41:57

had to say about Wisconsin Parmesan.

41:59

And it's that all of his provocative debunkings

42:02

of Italian food myths are driven by

42:04

a purpose. To convey that

42:07

foods are constantly changing.

42:10

Just like people. He

42:11

said his own

42:14

mission and ultimate goal is to tell

42:16

people that you cannot freeze identity.

42:19

Because if you freeze identity

42:21

and tradition at one point, you

42:23

end up killing it.

42:24

We invent traditions to preserve a connection

42:27

to our past. To make things we

42:29

love feel permanent and unchanging.

42:32

Whether that's a cheese or something less tangible.

42:34

Like where we're from. But those connections

42:37

are only as permanent and unchanging

42:39

as we are. Which let's face

42:42

it,

42:43

isn't very.

42:44

The traditions

42:47

that endure are the ones that keep up

42:49

with us. It's like when you're on a train

42:52

and a second train appears on a parallel

42:54

track running at the same speed. When

42:57

you look at it, it can seem like no one is

42:59

moving at all. Even though both

43:01

trains, both us and

43:04

our traditions, are hurtling

43:06

forward. Parmesan, even

43:09

with all its rules, has been moving

43:11

with us. It started

43:13

as an Italian tradition but when you make

43:15

something

43:16

this good, people are going to

43:18

spread it, adopt it, change

43:20

it, and make it into a tradition

43:24

of their very own.

43:30

Too bad because the story is a better anecdote.

43:32

If Wisconsin Parmesan now is really

43:34

good. But it's only itself.