Parmesan or Parmigiano Cheese

In the space of a day we received a couple of bulletins concerning the European Union's take on two of Italy's finest typical products: olive oil and parmigiano-reggiano cheese.   

The good news is that the General Lawyer of the Court of Justice of the European Community has expressed his opinion that by the end of 2007 the word 'parmesan' cannot be used to refer to a cheese that is not the authentic parmigiano-reggiano DOP from the Po Valley.

Straight forward no? Not really because Germany had sustained that 'parmesan' was now a generic term and could be applied to similar cheeses made by them.

The Court of Justice replied that that was just the point. It was generic and therefore could not be used to avoid confusion with the real thing.   

In any case, the Italian producers would probably never utilize the term 'parmesan' for their products and we guess the word will now be locked in the Esperanto vaults at Brussels for further use, or sold on e-bay to the Chinese.

This now brings us to olive oil. DOP extra virgin olive oil is recognised by the EU like parmesan cheese, sorry, parmigiano-reggiano.

But at the same time a new European law on the table this year may cancel the obligation to declare on a bottle of extra virgin olive oil the origin of the olives used in its production, a law passed in 2004.   

So what! Well, it won't stop fine DOP extra virgin olive oil being made in Italy, but it will tempt others to import even more cheaper olives from non EU countries such as Tunisia and Algeria and, to all effects deliver a EU product onto our shelves at a more than competitive price to a consumer who may not know or care about the subtleties of great extra virgin olive oil.

Like wine, there is olive oil and there is olive oil. You get what you pay for and you don't tend to find the best stuff in your local supermarket.