Text 3845, 69 rader
Skriven 2008-03-15 10:54:02 av Glen Jamieson
     Kommentar till en text av Burton Ford
Ärende: HOLY CHEESE  80315
==========================
 -=> Quoting Burton Ford to Glen Jamieson <=-

Greetings, Burt,
 
 gj-> "GIANT 400 KG ITALIAN AURICCHIO
 gj-> PROVOLONE PICCANTE
 gj-> CHEESE CUTTING CEREMONY"

 BF> Wegmans has twice had cutting ceremonies of cutting a big Italian
 BF> Parmesan.   It's a fun event.   In our local store there were only
 BF> 15-20 people present, which I'm sure was a disappointment to the suits
 BF> present. 
 gj-> The centre of attention was a man on a ladder, who was
 gj-> beginning to attack the first cheese.  

 BF> Our person of ceremony was a lady in her 50s, who made heavy weather
 BF> of wedging down through the hard, hard cheese wheel.  She worked her
 BF> tail off, wedging and cutting to crack the wheel for the first time.  

Parmesan is such a hard cheese that I would expect the woman to have
had considerable trouble.

 BF> It was really a heavy duty job... I think I would have had a serious
 BF> problem doing it.   The cheese was cracked and wedged into big pieces,
 BF> which she then was able to cut or slice.

Like splitting logs?  Did she have to use a hammer to drive in the
wedges?  Did everyone get free samples of the parmesan?
 
 gj-> The cheeses, which were each about 2.5 metres long by 50 cm diameter, 

 BF> Good Heavens, 2.5 meters is Eight [8] feet long!  I had no idea
 BF> cheeses came that big!  That was a monster.  Lets see, 2.5 m X 50 cm =
 BF> .49 cubic meters
 BF> .... that's around 180kg. of Parmesan!

Errr, check your calculations.  The dimensions were an eye estimate.
Could have been a bit longer. Each one weighed in at 450kg, making a
total of about one US Ton of provolone cheese! There were over 200
people there for the ceremony, and everyone got pieces to try.  Most
then bought chunks.

To arrange to import those cheeses from Italy, and bring them undamaged
to the ceremony, was a praiseworthy achievement.

 BF> The wheels that we saw cut at Wegmans were more like 20 inches tall by
 BF> 25 inches wide as I remember.  

There were some other cheeses of that size on display and sale.  That
store is really serious about cheeses and Italian smallgoods.  (g)
 
 gj-> Fortunately there were free samples of Coriole wines and verjuice, 

 BF> Coriole's Verjuice is just pressed juice from not too aweet grapes?

Yes.  They had two varieties, from different kinds of unripe grapes -
one light pink and the other pale greenish.  It is used as a cooking
ingredient, but after tasting some, I think it could also serve as a
good, sharp, non-alcoholic drink base.

Some of the wineries here have been branching out into products like
that, and also into the pressing of olives for quality oil.

Among the imported Italian items on sale I saw small bottles of 25 year
old Balsamic vinegar.  I didn't bother about checking the price.
___ Blue Wave/DOS v2.30 [NR]

--- FLAME v2.0/b
 * Origin: Braintap BBS Adelaide Australia (3:800/449)