Come on. That last is obviously a "championship" which is completely biased towards American style and palate, and probably only has a very few non-American cheeses in the competition. It is run by the Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association, and might not even have many submissions that aren't from Wisconsin. They only list styles and winners but it is transparently biased/primarily local. Similar comments can be made for the American Cheese Society link.

They may or may not be impartial, but is it really any different than the EU PDO? If Italy can claim the flavor is special to the region, Wisconsin should be able to make similar claims of their superiority.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/how-good-has-u...

PDO doesn't claim "this is better", just "this is made in a consistent fashion from consistent ingredients and will have a consistent taste".

Wisconsin can most certainly get a protected origin mark, if they like.

It's like McDonalds vs. a diner. You know exactly what you get when you got to a McDonalds; it will be essentially identical all over the country. Going to a diner may be amazing, or it may be shit.

Very different. I've tried cooking with Bel Gioso's products a few times. If their packaged mozzarella is anything like their parmesan, i'd pass.

"When we hold a World Championship for a particular sport, we invite teams from other countries to play, as well."

    John Cleese talking about the differences between the UK and USA

I'm Italian living in California, I looked far and wide for reasonable alternatives and wished to find good stuff here. You can give yourself all the medals you want but it won't make you the real deal, the stuff you mentioned might be passable grated but it's not even remotely the same when consumed by itself.

I’m originally American living in Europe at the moment (where regional food trademark labels are honored) and I have to say — real Parmesan is utterly pure magic ...

Have you tried the actual cheeses he mentions?

Yes, but I didn't need to. American producer aren't up to snuff at the moment. Belgioioso is an italian brand BTW, I used to sell it in my family's store back in Italy, we used to own a high end deli and know quite a bit about Italian food and specifically about cheese, at 15 I was the "product manager" for parent's store. Ask me anything :)

BelGioioso is absolutely an American brand [1]. It was admittedly founded by an Italian immigrant and run by "Italian master cheesemakers", but all cheese production happens in Wisconsin, using American dairy and workers.

[1] https://www.belgioioso.com/Secret

I call it "Italian" because they are culturally and technically very similar to the companies that make cheese in Italy, and an offshoot of Auricchio (they have been importing cheese in the US for a long time before starting that US company). They make more or less the same medium quality products Auricchio is known for in this country, I'm not really a fan.

There are some very good cheese makers in the States (e.g. Prairie Fruit). But of course they have enough decency not to call their stuff "Parmesan" when it isn't.

How does it being sold in Italy make it an Italian brand? Do they make some of it there? Or is it an unrelated company.

It was started by a member of the Auricchio family - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auricchio

> There are good American variants. "Parmigiano-Reggiano" may be protected, but it doesnt mean that the only good cheese is coming from Italy.

Cool. How about they stand on their own feet and you folks stop lying about and mislabeling products?

It's also quite obvious that Italy is not the only place good cheese comes from. The UK and France at the very least are in the running.

Depending where you live, there are a lot of small-time artisan cheese makers who make great product. For example, Gunn's Hill in southwestern Ontario— their stuff is more like a mild swiss than a sharper parmesan, but it's beautifully flexible for sandwiches, sauces, snacking, whatever. And the cheese counters at our local farmers market have a number of options like this.

https://www.gunnshillcheese.ca/artisan-cheese/our-artisan-ch...

WTF? The official website photo of "American Grana" shows a wheel with holes. This is not Swiss cheese: it's a major defect that is evidence of bad fermentation.

Apart from the demented indications (the "Parmesan" is aged far too little to allow grating) and recipes (e.g. Aglio e Olio spaghetti, the most inappropriate place to put grated cheese of any type on), these wheels are seriously tiny, presumably for industrial production reasons.

It would be nice to find details about their production process, especially what they do with cream.

I've bought BelGioioso a few times out of necessity (in places with no good supermarkets around that carry real parmesan). It's nothing like parmesan. It's not a bad cheese, just not parmesan. No signs of crystals anywhere, no depth of flavour. Their version of asiago is better, though still not great.

Nobody in Italy even cares about those contests (for one, they'd consider "ACS" a contradiction terms).