Don’t say cheese, say formaggio

I’ll never forget the first time I walked in to the Dean & Deluca in Georgetown (Washington, DC). I was at the beginning of my culinary awakening, when I first became aware of the vast world of food beyond what I had experienced in my small Midwestern community. In particular, the array of specialty cheeses floored me: I did not recognize 90% of the names displayed in neat handwriting beside the wheels, blocks, and wedges that filled the case. I was intimidated and self-conscious about being so uninformed, so I demurred when the helpful sales clerk asked if I was interested in anything. Twenty-something me could have used this guide to Italian cheese from Australian Gourmet Traveller.

The article breaks down the dairy delights by category – soft and stretched curd cheese, semi-soft cheese, blue mold cheese, semi-hard, and hard-cooked – and further delineates by variety. While the primer only includes a handful of examples for each type, knowing the characteristics can help you decide what cheese will work best for your needs.

Also included in the guide are useful tidbits that dispel common myths and provide information on how to serve a particular cheese. For example, “There’s a great misconception with a lot of cheeses that the older it is, the better it is, but that’s simply not the case,” says Anthony Femia, owner of Melbourne’s Maker and Monger. “A lot of places sell 2- or 3-year-old Parmigiano Reggiano, but that’s when you can get bile flavours,” he says. Femia also explains the best way to serve this popular cheese: he says shaving it “release more of the flavours and the crunch of the calcium crystals,” and that Parmigiano Reggiano should also be served fairly cold to prevent the cheese from sweating.