When in Parma, tasting tour is a must

Our guide whacks the side of a wheel of Parmigiano- Reggiano with a metal hammer. "Hear that ping? A thud is a dud," he says. "Like wine, cheese has a peak. And that ping signals ripeness."

When rain inundates us on a dreary Monday and museums are closed, we opt for ham-and-cheese touring and tasting so we can experience what Parma is famous for.

In this region of crenelated castles towering over trim farm buildings, epicures have been heard to exclaim, "Parmigiano-Reggiano is not only lunch; it is also a pause in serenity." Parma's astounding art and beautifully adorned boutiques are the foam on the cappuccino; for food is to this celebrated gastronomical capital of Italy as the Sistine Chapel is to Rome.

This area of Emilia-Romagna in central Italy is celebrated for Parmigiano-Reggiano, the pièce de résistance of Italian cooking. Chefs at trattorias and restaurants freshly grate hearty servings over local specialties of risotto ai porcini freschi and tagliatelle al prosciutto, as well as feature it in buffets of calda and freddo (hot and cold) antipasti. Parmigiano is such a staple of the Italian kitchen, where it is used as a table cheese - in antipasto, sauces, and pies, and on meats and vegetables - that only 6 percent of production ends up on the world's tables.

We had arranged for a tour of a Parmigiana-Reggiano processing plant. As we drove with our guide, Giovanni Morini, we noticed the rolling jade pastures of the countryside lacked grazing cows. Due to a scarcity of land, Mr. Morini tells us, the animals are raised inside to ration their feed for the five winter months. Heifers are fed carefully controlled combinations of grass, hay, and soybean concentrates.

"This strict diet, a special climate, soil, lack of additives, and an aging period of two years, all add up to the world's most celebrated Parmigiana," he says.

The Italians struck gold as early as the 16th century when Parmigiano was hailed as "Italy's most valued product," usurping that honor from wool. Allegedly devoured by knights in shining armor, the cheese has been venerated in literature since the 13th century. Though it is still made by hand today, as it has been for seven centuries, production has become an exact science, created by artisans, with the quality controlled by the government, and a consortium of 950 cheesemakers from 20,000 small dairies overseeing production.

The name Parmigiano-Reggiano is applied only to cheese produced in the zona tipica belt of Parma: Reggio Emilia, Modena, Bologna, Mantua, and Cremona.

We turn right at the wedge-of-cheese sign to find the casello, a sparkling modern plant, where five operators monitor steaming, inverted-church-bell-shaped copper kettles of foaming creamy liquid, from which 40 wheels of cheese are produced each day.

Our first stop is the loading docks, where milk from neighboring farms is pumped by hose into flat trays above the cooking area. Two successive milkings are combined for each batch. Only the lightest cream is used for the cheese.

Following the ancient tradition, the mixture is stirred slowly by hand with a wire basket as it heats to 91 degrees F. To create a precise fermentation with heat off, rennet, a natural extract from calves' stomachs, is added.

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