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Why is Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese so expensive?
Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese is often one of the most expensive cheeses when it is bought at delicatessen counters or at supermarkets. However, we can make some considerations in this respect and prove that it is not exactly like that. First of all, it is a hard-paste and long-maturation cheese. This means that its water content is only approximately 30%, i.e. it is a highly concentrated cheese, where the nourishing substances present in milk (casein, fat, mineral, vitamins, etc.) undergo a special drying process, or more appropriately dehydration process, both during production in the dairy and in the maturation rooms. Therefore, when you buy a hundred grams of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, you are actually taking home about 70% nourishing substances. Instead, if you buy other soft or fresh cheeses (which can also be very tasty) the water content can be up to 50%. The quantity of nourishing substances bought is definitely not the same.
You must also consider that to achieve its top quality level, Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese takes at least 24 months. This means that at least two years go by between the moment the cheese is made and the time the consumer purchases it to eat it, so that producers and maturers will not earn any money for all this time and, as you know, “time is money”, or better the money invested is costly!
Finally, we should not forget that the dairy cows making milk for Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese are mainly fed with hay from the area of origin and are not allowed to eat other fodder (e.g. fermented forage) which is cheaper, but would give rise to quality problems during the maturation phase. We say all this to prove that it is not only a valuable cheese, but it is also worth its price.
Bargain Bin: Yellow+Blue Malbec
Finally! An eco-friendly boxed wine we'll drink
((FROM TASTINGTABLE.COM))
Wine is a carbon Bigfoot: All those heavy glass bottles and time spent on trucks and planes add up. Wine producers have been playing with glass alternatives for years (see Franzia), but we've never tried a boxed wine we could get behind until we were introduced to Yellow+Blue (get it?) by Scott Pactor, the picky palate who owns the beloved, organic-oriented Appellation Wine and Spirits.
The unoaked Argentinean Malbec is made from certified organic grapes, then boated to Canada where it's packaged in paperboard Tetra Paks, a process that produces about a fifth of the greenhouse emissions used to make and move glass bottles.
Eco-friendliness aside, at $12 a liter, it's the perfect fall picnic wine—soft and juicy with ripe plum and blueberry flavors and enough complexity to surprise the wine snobs. Just don't forget to recycle.