We are so thrilled to have finally found a cheese to welcome into the Gusti family, that we can’t help sharing our excitement with the cheese lovers in our lives. Just like us, all of our friends have been waiting for this moment for a long time. As Vacche Rosse Cheese wedges start being shipped from the Bronx, we are very pleased to be reading enthusiastic reactions that confirm our hype. The first message to arrive is a very poetic and almost romantic note from Victor Hazan, husband, and co-author of the wonderful food writer Marcella Hazan. Victor writes:
When I was a boy in Bologna, a very long time ago, I would periodically have my dinner alone, when my parents were otherwise engaged. Of all the dishes that our cook would prepare, one stood out and still enjoys a beloved place in my memory. It was a dish of tagliolini con burro e formaggio – thin homemade noodles with butter and grated cheese. In Bologna in the 1930’s, pasta was made at home, we hadn’t learned about spaghetti yet. What lives in my memory, is the taste of those noodles, of that butter, and most of all, that cheese. It was both salty and sweet, with an effusion of deeply satisfying flavor that lingered long after I had swallowed my last bite. A week ago, at home in Florida, I had a golden yellow piece of cheese in my hands whose fragrance began to summon echoes of long ago. I grated it over hot noodles, tossed it with butter, and for that moment, I was a boy in Bologna. I understand that it is made today from the milk of the same breed of cows that were current then, the so-called vacche rosse. An almost forgotten taste recovered.
As always, grazie for your beautiful words, Victor. This is exactly what cheese maker Luciano means when he says that his Vacche Rosse Cheese is made the old-fashioned way!