Slow food is hard work at the Magazzini Generali delle Tagliate warehouse in Emilia Romagna, Italy. It’s the Fort Knox of cheese, with an inventory of 500,000 wheels worth an estimated 150 million euros. Production of classic Parmigiano Reggiano dates back to Benedictine monks in the Middle Ages. For the last eighty years, production has been strictly controlled. Cows must be raised in the provinces of Parma, Reggio Emilia, Modena, and parts of Bologna and Mantua, and eat only the local forage without any silage. It takes 145 gallons of milk to make each 84-pound wheel, which is aged at least a year, being turned and brushed every seven days to cure properly. At the end of the year experts tap each wheel with a hammer to listen for defects and decide whether it is worthy to be branded with the mark of Parmigiano Reggiano. If so, it’s left to cure for another twenty-four to forty months.
