Dave's Cheese Notes: Provolone Piccante (Zanetti)
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Look at my artsy photo of this provolone:
"Piccante" is usually Italian for "spicy", but means "strong" when referring to cheese. In the case of a cheese like provolone, think "sharp" or "piquant".
If you’re used to USA "grocery store provolone" sliced for use in sandwiches, it’s hard to know what to expect from a "real" aged provolone. It’s basically the same general taste, but more of that.
It can be surprisingly "stinky" and the flavor is very sharp - borderline harsh.
I didn’t think much of this cheese for cubing and snacking. It’s okay mixed with things like flavorful crackers and deli meats and that sort of thing, but not spectacular.
But then I started melting it on stuff.
When melted, the taste went from sharp to rich. I’m not a flavor expert and I didn’t grow up with the word umami. But I think that’s the right word for what this cheese adds to food when melted. The wikipedia.org entry for umami gives "savoriness" as a synonym.
Melt slices of this on top of your frozen pizza to make it a savory experience. Construct "melt" sandwiches like tuna melt with toasted bread. (All the above has to be in gluten-free versions for me, sadly, so being able to add this level of flavor is really great.)
What does Wikipedia have to say about provolone?
Provolone is a semi-hard cheese with taste varying greatly, from provolone piccante (sharp, piquant), aged for a minimum of four months and with a very sharp taste, to provolone dolce (sweet) with a very mild taste. In provolone piccante, the distinctive piquant taste is produced with lipase (enzyme) derived from goat. The dolce version uses calf’s lipase instead.
So it sounds like my cheese was blessed by a goat, which seems right.
Zanetti provolone, specifically
The Zanetti provolone story in two images from the company history page (zanetti-spa.it).
A long plop of cheese is excreted from a tube into a worker’s hungry hands:
Now cheese-maker Caronelli is acquired by Zanetti, becoming a happy member of the tube ploppin' family!
The official description of this taste sensation:
"CODE NUMBER PT 103 SALES UNIT 1x20Kg. %FAT/DRY MATTER 44% Min. PRODUCT EAN CODE 9-8002710641035…"
Yum!
Seriously, that’s it. It’s insanely hard to even find the right cheese. They’re trapped for some reason in JavaScript carousels, and all of the descriptions are dry facts clearly meant for bulk distributors.
Despite the ultra-corporate website, it sounds like Zanetti uses milk from local farms and make the cheese in the traditional regions. So make of that what you will.