Italophiles and cheese lovers, this news is for you.
Following the series of recent earthquakes in Emilia-Romagna, during which many hundreds of thousands of giant wheels of the region’s famous parmigiano-reggiano cheese were damaged, a group of dairies that produce the cheese have started a Facebook page so that mere mortals like us can purchase earthquake-damaged cheese. The wheels won’t be flawless, they may not even be full wheels, but the cheese is aged like any other parmigiano-reggiano and completely safe to eat. Buying these less-than-perfect cheese wheels helps stem some of the losses the cheese producers are going to suffer, and also helps keep them moving forward.
If you want to buy some of the earthquake-damaged cheese, here’s the Facebook group listing all the dairies that sell directly to the public. Yes, you’ll need to be in Italy in order to do this – but with several hundred thousand wheels of cheese having been damaged, chances are good there will be opportunities to buy these wheels for at least a few weeks (if not a few months).
Thanks to Elizabeth Minchilli for the heads-up about this on Twitter; and here’s a list of FAQ about ways you can help the cheese producers of Emilia-Romagna (it’s in Italian, but I got a good-enough English translation using the translate function on my browser).
photo by Desiree Tonus
