I’m still dreaming about the most amazing honeymoon my husband and I went on 2 months ago. Halfway through our journey we dropped our rented car off in Parma and cabbed to our airbnb in the center of the city. We had zero expectations and nothing planned. Our amazing host, who happens to be a professional basketball player, helped coordinate a parmesan tour. She had never done this but apparently, all of the American visitors want to do all of these crazy food tours. There was a little miscommunication and awkward translation to describe how to get to the tour so our host drove us there.
We had no idea what to expect. We were dropped off at a house in the middle of no where with a farm in the back filled with cows. There was a pretty bad stench of cow manure but we went with it. Not to long after, an energetic woman approached us, speaking in Italian, telling us to get in her car. We hopped in hoping we would end up at the factory tour. About 10 minutes later and a scary ride, we finally arrived at the factory, Ciao Latte.
We were warmly welcomed with a hot cup of espresso and small talk in Italian which we didn’t understand. The energetic lady who welcomed us turned out to be the owner of the small parmesan factory. Her sons work there, see the pic below. They really have the process down to a t and it was interesting to see the process happen before our eyes. The best part is that everything: cows, milk, butter, etc are all made/cared for in house. It’s tough to say this happens often in the US.
Have you ever wondered how the parmigiano reggiano name gets imprinted into the rind of cheese? The picture below is the official stamp that gets wrapped around each of the rounds. There was so much said but unfortunately it was hard understanding with the language barrier. Nonetheless, we successfully tried, bought, and toured a parmigiano reggiano factory in Parma, Italy. We had an interesting time getting back to our apartment but that’s a story for another time.
