Hard News: Not Helping
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Although I can't stand that supercilious "I'm the cheesemaker" guy. Get off your arse, stop harassing the applicants & GET BACK TO WORK!
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Or that I am an abuser of Cheese
Wholly crap! That's one I'm please to say I knew nothing about. And I aim to keep it that way.
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..and having just had some Mercer medium cumin on crackers for lunch, I would argue that Europe is not necessarily the only place for all that is aromatic and tasty..
Mercer medium cumin? You and I, to Piedmont, this minute.
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giovanni - Whitestone, Karikaas, Karitane, Gaalburn (for goat cheeses), and Kapiti...go explore!
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..and having just had some Mercer medium cumin on crackers for lunch, I would argue that Europe is not necessarily the only place for all that is aromatic and tasty..
Cheeze, 24 hours and it's all about cheesey cheese! It's growing like mould....., it's growing like the little baby cheezus.Also, Europe should be more experienced at growing cheese! they are the adults of our adolescence, I think.
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Kapiti...go explore!
You don't want to get me started on Kapiti cheeses. To limit myself to the cheeses they stole, the bocconcini, parmesan, mozzarella, brie and camembert (please supply double inverted commas and sarcastic tone on my behalf) are uniformly awful. I just can't find ways of excusing that cultural misappropriation.
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We steal everything except our own kaimoana giovanni! Cheeses, lamb, beef, venison, breads & scones & pizza, all the currently available fruits, 99.99% of the vegetables - you name it, we've got it & are working on it -because none of them are natural/endemic/indigenous, and *all* of them can stand a little working on (ask the humble Chinese gooseberry...our wasabi (exported at prmium prices back to Japan)...various wines...)
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And yep Sofie - other lands have had a looonng time to work on their stuff- "little baby cheezus"? Rofflenui!
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We steal everything except our own kaimoana giovanni!
And I'm fine with it. How do you think Italy got to have the fine gastronomy that it does have? But if you take a cheese with a name and a tradition and a pretty well defined set of procedures, and a taste, for chrissakes, and then you just make a pale imitation, obviously forgoing to do half the things you're supposed to do according to the recipe, and ending up of course with a far inferior product, and then you still insist on giving him the name, say, Parmesan, and charging as if it was the real thing (if not more, in fact) that's just wrong on so many levels I don't really know where to start.
Not that I'm bitter. But you know nonna? Parmigiano is what built her patch, and lifted a whole bunch of people from the direst of poverties. We take it pretty seriously.
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Yeah, I agree with a lot of that (paticularly the taste factor) - but these are early days: once we grow confident of our developing expertise, we then cease with the stolen nomenclature: Chinese gooseberries become kiwifruit, and cheddar ceases to have its original connotations - it becomes a kind of generic 'cheese' - tasty or mild.
And - peace to your Nonna - if I want something to really taste 'Parmesan', I go source imported Parmigiano - because I know & can taste the difference.The pasteurised milk bit was mentioned: it's why I'm growing quite fond of some locally-produced goat cheese (and over-the-hill ewe cheeses & yoghurt...)
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Not that I'm bitter. But you know nonna? Parmigiano is what built her patch,
Mmmm, Last night's was divine (Italian) and a yummy Spanish Blue up at Nosh.......mmmmmmmm
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Yeah, I agree with a lot of that (paticularly the taste factor) - but these are early days: once we grow confident of our developing expertise, we then cease with the stolen nomenclature
Mmmmhhh... I don't know if I can accept that. Cheese and oil and winemakers in New Zealand on the whole are pretty slick operations, with a lot of agriscience and marketing behind them. It's not as if they ignore what it takes to make a good cheese, or the inventiveness to come up with a good recipe of their own, or the fresh ingredient. If they have a whole line of poorly made fake imports, it seems to me, is purely out of calculation: the name allows to sell more cheese and at a higher price, and cutting corners on the process (on the grounds that not enough people have had a chance to taste the real thing) maximises profits. I know actual Parmigiano makers who have been struggling for quite some time, and yet they keep respecting the recipe and doing their darned best to put out the product that they've always offered. There is a pride in that and that somebody on the other side of the planet can just cash in on it jars a little. Especially coming from a country that prides itself on respecting and valuing indigeneity.
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If they have a whole line of poorly made fake imports, it seems to me, is purely out of calculation: the name allows to sell more cheese and at a higher price, and cutting corners on the process (on the grounds that not enough people have had a chance to taste the real thing)
I'm with you Giovanni, now I have lived and travelled in Europe and can go into the supermarket here and get French Camembert and Roquefort and Spanish Manchego and Parmigiano (had some grated on top the pasta bake last night, mmmm) and Mozzarella from Italy. In fact if the supermarkets want to sell pasta for any money it has to be made in Italy. Even my gluten free stuff is.
However before I gained the experience what did I know? only that the NZ 'Camemberts' didn't ripen while the French ones did (when we could afford them). I agree that local knockoffs in NZ are very pale imitations of the real thing and we should be forging our own types instead.
Here's a suggestion, in Prague we had with our beer some 'beer cheese' not made with beer but made to go with beer and boy did it. I reckon a similar sort of product made to go with NZ brews could go down a storm. Just don't claim it is from Bohemia.
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Is there such a thing as a cheese tour of Europe? I now feel like I need to go on one.
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I'm with you Giovanni, now I have lived and travelled in Europe and can go into the supermarket here and get French Camembert and Roquefort and Spanish Manchego and Parmigiano (had some grated on top the pasta bake last night, mmmm) and Mozzarella from Italy. In fact if the supermarkets want to sell pasta for any money it has to be made in Italy.
My objection though is not so much where the stuff was made, but how it was made. Mozzarella is now a generic cheese name, so far as I know there is no consortium that protects its provenance, at least outside of Europe. Make it wherever you want, but make it well. Or if you make a cheap knock off, charge the price of a cheap knock off. Similarly with pasta, there are Australian supermarket brands that are better than some of the inferior Italian ones that ship over here, and there's at least one excellent local dry pasta maker in Christchurch that I happen to know of, probably more. And tons of great fresh pasta makers. I have absolutely no objection to that. Nor do I have anything against Pizza Hut, etc. So long as you don't pretend to be Italian (like the Dolmio sauces or an incredible maker of Panforte, also from Christchurch), it's all okay by me.
In the case of Parmigiano, you can't make it anywhere else (it's been tried, in Argentina), there's just something in the local soil. But if you want to make a decent grateable cheese that serves more or less the same function, first of all make it decent, and second of all don't charge as if it was the real thing (the Kapiti was actually more expensive than the imported Parmigiano, until the NZ dollar crashed last year), since obviously it's costing you so much less to make. Otherwise it's just cultural piracy.
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Who was it who mentioned the smelly secrets of Mercer's cheese shop? that place is magnificent. Lots of cheese, in a shop that fufills all the criteria of the fabled European cheese shops as featured in "My Little Pony" books. In fact, the shop has even had to install a gun turret outside to protect its contents.
AND the samples are generous.
AND the prices are very reasonable, especially compared to what the robber barons just up the road at Fonterra HQ charge for their bland family 1kgs.
Hmmm, come to think of it that big Fonterra factory next to State Highway One and close to the Waikato river DOES resemble one of those sinister Schlosses one can see perched above the Rhine.
Anyway, I suggest everyone makes the time to stop at Mercer for some cheesey comestibles whenever down that way.
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I reckon a similar sort of product made to go with NZ brews could go down a storm.
Don't get me started. We allready have cheeses that match perfectly with our local brews. Those squares of prosessed "cheese" are an ideal foil for Swienlarger and what would go better with Lion Red than grated colby in a plastic bag?
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And then there is this...
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Tom having driven down the Rhine valley on a lovely day not too long ago I can remember very few Schloss that could be described as 'sinister'. The majority got fairy taled in the 19thC and look rather romantic to us.
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Peter: Yes, but you just can't trust the Huns.
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A last tidbit on cheese:-
The 2 Kapiti cheeses I've tried & truly relished were Hipi Ma, and a rind-washed gloriously intense number (I've forgotten the name.)
Other than that, I tend to eat locally - Evansdale at Karitane; Barrys Bay over towards Akaroa; goat cheeses from Kumara Junction and Kakanui, and Whitestone from Otago (their ewes'milk feta, and Moeraki & Windsor blues are excellent.)
I agree, giovanni, that making tasteless ripoffs of overseas products is a no-no -but the Gaalburn haloumi is really neat - and what other name should be used to convey 'goatmilk cooking cheese"? There was - I think they've gone under - a mozzarella made up the Coast Road (yes, buffalo were farmed there.)
It's the same problem with the wines -champagne is now out, so we use methode traditionelle (or champane, as I advocate, being in keeping with the other drink-name stealing Ehglish does - like sherry or port...)
Eventually, this place will have its own names - as we do for paua, or Bluff oysters, or inaka /'bait- but, in the meantime, we use established varietal names (pinot noir or cabernet sauvignon; camembert or Parmesan.) But, as mentioned before, if I want to cook something that tastes it should taste from a recipe new to me, I'll go to quite a bit of trouble to obtain the Real Ingredients- Parmigiano, or galangal, or Japanese nori (yes, I have tried using kareko, but it's a helluva lot of trouble preparing it as sheets, and the end result - wasnt quite right) -or real prosciutto.
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I think it's also okay to keep the name is the product is good and it's genuinely descriptive. Volumetric (don't laugh) makes a shredded mozzarella for pizza that is cheaper than any other brand and far superior in my extremely not humble opinion. I'm with you regarding eating locally, but we need to try other things and learn from each other, rather than having to reinvent all the things that other cultures have come up with.
I shall overcome my visceral hatred of Kapiti cheeses and try the Hipi-Ma - but just because it's you... :-)
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Their Kikorangi blue brie is meant to be good on world terms, but I'm no cheesemeister.
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I'm kind of fond of the Kikorangi (and they're just down the road from me) but Stilton, it's not. Which is okay, a mild blue is good too. But I've yet to find an NZ blue that matches up.
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I'm not a fan of blue, so the mildness is proably a large part of Kikorangi's appeal for me. Goes damn well with roasted almonds, figs, etc, too.
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