Grilled Cheese & Tomato Soup

It's such a classic American food combination that it's practically a cliché.

The CC was desperately craving it on today's dark and stormy morning and nothing else would do. Even if the ingredients were not already present, he would've braved the elements to get them. Cravings will do that.

Recipes follow but first we are going to discuss the origins of the dish and what makes it so "classic".

The easier part to start with is the "grilled cheese". While toasted bread and melted cheese and the combination go back into antiquity — we have evidence since at least Roman times — the modern incarnation dates back to 1920's America.

America has consistently been a leader in food technology of both the wildly innovative variety (and it's dark sinister underbelly) since its beginnings. Everything from grain silos to rail transportation that allowed it to supply Midwestern grain to 19th-century Europe cheaper than it could manufacture itself speaks to the country's muscular prowess in food innovation.

The innovation in this case was two-fold.

One was the invention of bread-slicing machines by Otto Rohwedder of Iowa. The other was the invention of processed cheese patented by James Kraft. Cheese went from a perishable product to something that could be canned. (The CC has a strong memory of opening a can of Kraft cheese sometime in his childhood.)

The eponym "grilled cheese" didn't exist till the 1960's or so. It was all "toasted cheese sandwich"  or "melted cheese sandwich" before that. The origins are ancient, remember? It's just the speed of preparation that was new.

The popularity really took off after the Kraft corporation invented "Singles" sometime in the late-1940's but it really took off when supermarkets stocked them in the mid-1960's. The convenience factor took off.

And thus the grilled cheese became the best invention since sliced bread (sic).

You can guess where the rest of the story is going.

Tomato soup is also a reasonably classic idea. It just follows the template of most vegetable soups from ancient times even though the tomato is a New World product. The difference between other soups and that of the tomato is its absurd umami. Its popularity is entirely unsurprising.

The popularity comes from the innovations and marketing efforts of the Campbell Soup Company. It became something that you didn't have to work too hard. You just had to open a can and heat it up. Convenience once again.

But what about the combination? Why does it work?

You could argue that it is "comfort food" but then that begs the question, "What makes comfort food comforting in the first place?"

We have a partial answer to that. As a general rule, comfort food is high in carbohydrates and fats.

This dish doesn't follow that template directly. For starters, the cheese has proteins and the soup is made with stock. The bread is insubstantial compared to the "high protein" factor.

Comfort food also has a strong "memory factor" as being something from your childhood that you loved which also brings us to the analogous question, "Why did you love it in your childhood in the first place?"

Chez CC, we are strong believers in ur-reasons not reasons which just push along one concept in favor of a differently named one thus passing the buck but explaining absolutely nothing.

The "magic" of the combination comes from three factors.

Firstly, the absurd interplay of umami between three ingredients — the cheese, the tomatoes and the stock that is used to make it. As we have noted, the combined umami coming from animal products and from vegetable products has an amplifying effect. In this case, the cheese and stock on one hand and the tomatoes on the other.

There are specialized umami receptors on our tongues and if they fire at some response from either cheese or tomato they will fire between 15-20x that amount at the combination. The sum is greater than the parts. You will perceive the combination to be extraordinarily savory.

Secondly, there is still the high-ish carbohydrate and fat factor which definitely makes the dish appealing. Also, there's the combination of salty cheese, sweet and sour tomatoes. Your taste buds are firing from a lot of combinations.

Lastly, it's the textural interplay. The toasted crunchy bread, the ooey-gooey melted cheese and the wet tomato soup. They each play a role. No two bites will be exactly alike just because of the variation in dunking time and eating time. Each bite is just slightly different enough to provide and sustain interest.

Children would particularly appreciate the dish since it doesn't have any bitter elements at all. This is what most likely accounts for the memory factor.

These days we have come full circle from the production of these dishes. We balk at opening a can for the soup or using crappy cheese and the dish isn't even hard to make. It took the CC no more than 30 minutes. Of course, we have the modern-day convenience of immersion blenders, dishwashers, and the like.

To understand the seemingly-backward nature of this, you'd have to first understand that the three products talked about above were very different 70 years than they are today. The tomato soup was really tomato, broth, salt and pepper. The breads had long fermentations. The cheese was actually cheese. There were no preservatives and the shelf-life was similarly constrained. As time went on the products just got worse and worse and today it bears no resemblance whatsoever to its original conception.

And hence it's back to the past.

The CC is not a purist. The tomatoes came from a can but they were real tomatoes and salt. Nothing else. The bread is one made with a long ferment but it's a standard Pullman bread. The cheese is the only place where the CC went "fancy" but that's because he had all three in his refrigerator.

The recipe is going to be exactly as good as the ingredients that go into it. Even poor ingredients will make it work but good ones will turn it into magic.

The combination is exactly as magical as the CC remembers it.

Tomato Soup

(serves 4)

Ingredients

l large onion (or 4 shallots)
4 cloves garlic
1 32-oz San-Marzano canned tomatoes
4 cups chicken stock (read notes below for substitutions)

2 tbsp. unsalted cultured butter
2 tbsp. olive oil

1 sprig sage

sugar (optional - read below!)
water (optional)

salt
pepper

Recipe

Heat up the butter and olive oil at medium heat. Sautée the onions and garlic in them for about 6-7 minutes. Add the tomatoes, sage and the broth and bring to a low simmer. Add salt and pepper.

Skim the fat as it comes to the surface. Let it cook for about 20 minutes.

Using an immersion blender, purée the mixture.

Taste it. You may need to add a little sugar to balance the acidity of the tomatoes. Also additional salt and pepper. You may also need to thin the soup a little using some water. You can prepare it until this point ahead of time.

Reheat and bring it to a boil again. Serve.

Note: If you are vegetarian, instead of chicken stock, you must make a quick Japanese dashi using just kombu. You absolutely need the umami. Plain water is not going to cut it and vegetable broth would change the flavor towards a more bitter element which is not what you want either.

Grilled Cheese

Ingredients

8 slices of good bread

1/2 cup cheddar
1/2 cup parmigiano-reggiano
1 cup gruyère

salted cultured butter

Recipe

Note: The tomato soup calls for unsalted cultured butter but this one calls for the salted variety. Just sprinkle salt on the buttered side otherwise. Yes, the CC demands some perfection.

Shred the cheese using a grater.

Classically, this is made using a skillet but it's time-consuming work. The oven works just as well for a larger crowd.

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Butter one side of each of the 8 slices of bread. Assemble them on a baking sheet. Between two slices you put in the grated cheese. The buttered slices are on the outside. Yes, this is messy work.

Put the pan in the oven for 10 minutes.

At the ten-minute mark, flip each of the sandwiches and put them back in the oven for 6 minutes.

Slice them diagonally. Yes, this matters. It makes the dunking work in a clean and elegant fashion.

(Sorry Mom, you are still not forgiven for slicing it wrong occasionally but you need to know that the CC had good intuition even as a kid but now can express the same fact analytically.)

Bacterial Overload

Recently the CC went to one of those outdoor street fairs where there was a pickle stand. They were also selling some of the pickled juice blended with tomatoes as a "Bloody Mary Mix". The vendors kept apologizing and warning clients who wanted to buy it that it was not pasteurized.

And the CC was completely nonplussed, "So it has come to this?"

It doesn't need to be pasteurized!

There is a fundamental lack of understanding by people who work in food about our relationship with other bio-agents and particularly the organisms that we are deeply symbiotic with namely bacteria.

At this point in time, advertising agencies have basically convinced consumers that bacteria are "evil" but nothing could be further from the truth.

The standard mechanism of cultivating bacteria in the lab is creating something called a "culture". Basically, a swab of bacteria are grown on a substrate and then examined under a microscope. Based on this, it was estimated that something like 1% of a human mass was actually bacteria. Little did people know how wrong this estimate turned out to be.

In the early part of the 21st century, the price of DNA sequencers fell precipitously. What used to be an expensive tool became dirt cheap. Scientists had the entirely brilliant idea of not measuring bacteria by mass but by what percentage of DNA of our body was made up of bacteria. Turns out the answer is between 90-99%.

Remember the two estimates are of different things. One is by weight and the other is by percentage of DNA that is non-human. They are different things but the latter estimate is clearly the more important.

To put it differently, we humans exist for the benefit of the bacteria not the other way around. Of course, we are extraordinarily symbiotic with them. We provide them the food and they provide us both protection by repelling all the "bad bacteria" and do significant portions of body work for us.

In fact, the bacteria on your left and right hands are completely different.

So why did the earlier scientists get it so wrong? How can the estimates be so off?

You should be able to guess the answer. Not every bacteria can grow in the "culture". In fact, they can only survive in that localized environment inside the body that they have adapted to.

The answer is even more complex. There's no such thing as "good" or "bad" bacteria. It's contextual. You move the "good" bacteria from the right spot where they are supposed to be into the wrong spot and they will become "bad" bacteria. The context is completely important.

The bacteria that we are the most symbiotic with is a family called lactobacillus. Every time, you eat yogurt, eat or drink miso, eat pickles, cheese, kimchi, drink beer or wine, you are basically consuming them in vast quantities. They do the fermentation for us, and in turn, they repel other harmful bacteria for us. We are completely reliant on them.

So now maybe you can guess why the pickled juice blended with tomatoes did not need to be pasteurized?

The lactobacilli would repel any invader which there are not that many of to start with because of the acidity of the environment. The lactobacilli are the rare family that has adapted to the acidic environment thanks to their symbiosis with us.

Fermented foods have a long history of being considered "good for you". It was just an empirical observation over large swathes of human history in vastly different regions and contexts but they all came to the same conclusion.

Only in the 21st century is science able to actually dissect how all these various extraordinarily-complex mechanisms actually work.

But the CC's point is a lot larger. How have we gotten to a point where the most basic food interaction is fraught with anxiety? The answer is that Madison Ave. has made you paranoid.

The CC never relies on the expiration dates for milk. Just smell it. It's pretty obvious. Sometimes it will go bad before the expiration date!

The same goes for fermentation and fermented products. They work in a complex way and made correctly will last forever. Experienced picklers never throw out the juice. They use a cup of it to start off the next batch because it has the complex blend of bacteria all ready to give the next batch the right start.

Pickling is one of the greatest achievements in food technology. Just remember that for most of human history, humans were food deprived. Our modern calorie-rich environment is an extraordinarily recent development barely 50 years old. Pickling was the trick that allowed humans to store food for the winter. It also gave variety and complexity to their diet and the symbiotic relationship with the bacteria made for healthier humans.

The CC hopes that this explanation convinces people not to think of bacteria as "evil" but our necessary partners in the game of life. We need them; they need us. We can't actually function without them.

So the next time you're at the fair eating a pickle-on-a-stick, you should not think to yourself "Ooh! crunchy cucumber", you should really be thinking "Ooh! Tons of bacteria with a side helping of crunchy cucumber!"

New Year's Party

It's that time of the year again and the CC is hosting his annual party again after a hiatus of a year.

Four cheeses from Bobolink Dairy
Baguette
♦
Chilli-topped Parmesan Biscuits
♦
Candied Walnuts with Rosemary and Lavender
Almond-stuffed Medjool Dates sautéed with Lavender & Sea-Salt
♥
Champagne

Happy New Year!

Improptu Dinner Party

Shishito Peppers with Sea Salt
♦
Zebra Tomatoes with Arbequina Olive Oil and Sea Salt
♦
Autumn Mac-n-Cheese with Vegetables
♦
Cheese Course (with Duck-Fat Ciabatta)
♦
Chocolate

Mercado de San Miguel

In Madrid. Foodie's dream come true.

Chinese Chefs Taste Cheese

As many here know, the CC is a big fan of Fuchsia Dunlop and her two books on authentic Chinese cooking. She is the first foreigner (and woman) to train at the famous Sichuan Institute of Higher Cuisine in Chengdu.

Here, she writes about her experience with having chefs taste cheese which is basically milk that has been precisely spoilt.

Cheese is not a favourite food in China, to put it mildly. Traditionally, dairy products were associated with the nomadic people who lived on the fringes of China and who were regarded as fearful barbarians. The Han Chinese, with a few notable exceptions, avoided eating dairy foods altogether: many were, and still are, lactose-intolerant. Cheese, however, is still generally regarded as beyond the pale. A few sophisticated Shanghainese might eat Stilton just as sophisticated Londoners eat tripe and chitterlings, but many people, especially in the provinces, have never tasted it.

Over several visits to Shaoxing, I wondered what the locals, such ardent lovers of rotted soymilk and vegetable stalks, would make of rotted cow’s milk, otherwise known as cheese. Finally, I returned to Shaoxing with a boxful of artisanal cheeses from Neal’s Yard Dairy in London, including the smelliest I could find in the shop. I had selected one mild hard cheese, Isle of Mull, to serve as a kind of toe-in-the-water; Stichelton, which is an unpasteurised version of Stilton; pale, veined Harbourne Blue; Ardrahan, a fairly whiffy washed-rind cheese that I adore; Milleens, another washed-rind variety with a punchy, farmyardy aroma that acquires a hint of ammonia as it ripens; and a wildly smelly Brie de Meaux. By the time I reached Shaoxing after a week on the road, the cheeses had all ripened nicely, and some were beginning to ooze.

At the Xianheng, a waitress cut the cheeses into pieces, and the assembled tasters began to pick them up with their chopsticks, sniffing and tasting. And where I had been impressed by what cheese and stinky soya products had in common, these culinary professionals were immediately struck by their differences. “Although in some ways you could say the flavours of cheese and fermented beancurd are similar,” said Mao, “vegetable stinky foods are very clean and clear in the mouth (qing kou), and they disperse quickly, while milky foods are greasy in the mouth (ni kou), they coat your tongue and palate, and they have a long, lingering aftertaste.”

Two other chefs said the cheeses had a heavy shan wei (muttony odour), an ancient term used by southern Chinese to describe the slightly unsavoury tastes associated with the northern nomads. Another said that the selection “smells like Russians”. “The difference,” he added, “is that the stinky things Chinese people eat give them smelly breath, while stinky dairy things affect the sweat that comes out of your skin.”

The entire article is fascinating!

The Food of the Gods

heirloom tomatoes, raw-milk cheese, basil, drizzled olive oil, fleur de sel

Spring Mac 'n Cheese (with Truffles)

Who the hell is the CC kidding? He can't afford truffles. But nearly as good is using a cheese that has truffle skin built into it. Yes, it's exactly as good as it sounds.

Mac 'n Cheese (with Veggies)

As always, it's always useful to revisit the classics.

The CC trusts y'all are smart enough to figure out how to add veggies to the béchamel.

(Recipe: link.)

Cheese & Spinach Strata

This is an excellent dinner (with a green salad.)

And it's even better the next day at room temperature.



(Source: Smitten Kitchen.)

"Hair of the Dog" Party

What better way to sing off the New Year blues than to do it again?

This was at a friend's place, and yes, the food helps!

New Year's Party

Almonds (fried with sea salt) ♦ Dried Figs
Sun-dried tomato pesto (with walnuts)
Spanish Fig Cake (with almonds)

Brillat-Savarin (with truffles)
Camembert
Chimay
Stilton


Happy New Year!

Hors d'oeuvres for Hee-Haw!

If you're really pressed for time and/or are lazy, just roast some walnuts, pulse them lightly in a food processor, buy a goat-cheese log, roll the log in afore-pulsed walnuts and serve with crackers.

Yep, that's a lot of instructions but that's as close as the CC comes to "fast food".

The Happy Threesome

This trio may be clichéd but it works: walnuts, stilton, pears.

In the modern culinary world, this trio is really like watching your great-aunt put on the latest hip flower-laced jeans and rappin' it out with Fitty Cent.

Which is embarassing.

However, your great-aunt was alive before Fitty so it's important to know why she's the way she is.

It's the sweet-salt combo plus the crunchy-velvety combo. Texture matters so do the taste buds.

Sweet are the pears and salty is the stilton. Crunchy is the texture of the walnuts, and differently crunchy are the pears; velvety is the stilton which blends beautifully with the equally velvety texture of the chewed walnuts and pears.

What's most important to note is that humans may have evolved but their palates haven't. We still love the same things our two-thousand year old ancestors did.

That still means sweet, salt and fat, mes amis, and rappin' it out with your great-aunt.

Day Blooms Agen

Once again, on Bloomsday, an excerpt from the CC's beloved Ulysses. This time from Joyce's wonderful take on the Lestrygonians.

After all there's a lot in that vegetarian fine flavour of things from the earth garlic, of course, it stinks Italian organgrinders crisp of onions, mushrooms truffles. Pain to animal too. Pluck and draw fowl. Wretched brutes there at the cattlemarket waiting for the poleaxe to split their skulls open. Moo. Poor trembling calves. Meh. Staggering bob. Bubble and squeak. Butchers' buckets wobble lights. Give us that brisket off the hook. Plup. Rawhead and bloody bones. Flayed glasseyed sheep hung from their haunches, sheepsnouts bloodypapered snivelling nosejam on sawdust. Top and lashers going out. Don't maul them pieces, young one.

Hot fresh blood they prescribe for decline. Blood always needed. Insidious. Lick it up, smoking hot, thick sugary. Famished ghosts.

Ah, I'm hungry.

He entered Davy Byrne's. Moral pub. He doesn't chat. Stands a drink now and then. But in leapyear once in four. Cashed a cheque for me once.

What will I take now? He drew his watch. Let me see now. Shandygaff?

-- Hellow, Bloom! Nosey Flynn said from his nook.

-- Hello, Flynn.

-- How's things?

-- Tiptop... Let me see. I'll take a glass of burgundy and... let me see.

Sardines on the shelves. Almost taste them by looking. Sandwich? Ham and his descendants mustered and bred there. Potted meats. What is home without Plumtree's potted meat? Incomplete. What a stupid ad! Under the obituary notices they stuck it. All up a plumtree Dignam's potted meat. Cannibals would with lemon and rice. White missionary too salty. Like pickled pork. Expect the chief consumes the parts of honour. Ought to be tough from exercise. His wives in a row to watch the effect. There was a right royal old nigger. Who ate or something the somethings of the reverend Mr MacTrigger. With it an abode of bliss. Lord knows what concoction. Cauls mouldy tripes windpipes faked and minced up. Puzzle find the meat. Kosher. No meat and milk together. Hygiene that was what they call now. Yom Kippur fast spring cleaning of inside. Peace and war depend on some fellow's digestion. Religions. Christmas turkeys and geese. Slaughter of innocents. Eat, drink and be merry. Then casual wards full after. Heads bandaged. Cheese digests all but itself. Mighty cheese.

-- Have you a cheese sandwich?

-- Yes, sir.

Like a few olives too if they had them. Italian I prefer. Good glass of burgundy; take away that. Lubricate. A nice salad, cool as a cucumber. Tom Kernan can dress. Puts gusto into it. Pure olive oil. Milly served me that cutlet with a sprig of parsley. Take one Spanish onion. God made food, the devil the cooks. Devilled crab.

…

…

…

Wine soaked and softened rolled pith of bread mustard a moment mawkish cheese. Nice wine it is. Taste it better because I'm not thirsty. Bath of course does that. Just a bite or two. Then about six o'clock I can. Six, six. Time will be gone then. She...

Mild fire of wine kindled his veins. I wanted that badly. Felt so off colour. His eyes unhungrily saw shelves of tins, sardines, gaudy lobsters' claws. All the odd things people pick up for food. Out of shells, periwinkles with a pin, off trees, snails out of the ground the French eat, out of the sea with bait on a hook. Silly fish learn nothing in a thousand years. If you didn't know risky putting anything into your mouth. Poisonous berries. Johnny Magories. Roundness you think good. Gaudy colour warns you off. One fellow told another and so on. Try it on the dog first. Led on by the smell or the look. Tempting fruit. Ice cones. Cream. Instinct. Orangegroves for instance. Need artificial irrigation. Bleibtreustrasse. Yes but what about oysters? Unsightly like a clot of phlegm. Filthy shells. Devil to open them too. Who found them out? Garbage, sewage they feed on. Fizz and Red bank oysters. Effect on the sexual. Aphrodis. He was in the Red bank this morning. Was he oyster old fish at table. Perhaps he young flesh in bed. No. June has no ar no oysters. But there are people like tainted game. Jugged hare. First catch your hare. Chinese eating eggs fifty years old, blue and green again. Dinner of thirty courses. Each dish harmless might mix inside. Idea for a poison mystery. That archduke Leopold was it? No. Yes, or was it Otto one of those Habsburgs? Or who was it used to eat the scruff off his own head? Cheapest lunch in town. Of course, aristocrats. Then the others copy to be in the fashion. Milly too rock oil and flour. Raw pastry I like myself. Half the catch of oysters they throw back in the sea to keep up the price. Cheap. No one would buy. Caviare. Do the grand. Hock in green glasses. Swell blowout. Lady this. Powdered bosom pearls. The élite. Crème de la crème. They want special dishes to pretend they're. Hermit with a platter of pulse keep down the stings of the flesh. Know me come eat with me. Royal sturgeon. High sheriff, Coffey, the butcher, right to venisons of the forest from his ex. Send him back the half of a cow. Spread I saw down in the Master of the Rolls' kitchen area. Whitehatted chef like a rabbi. Combustible duck. Curly cabbage à la duchesse de Parme. Just as well to write it on the bill of fare so you can know what you've eaten too many drugs spoil the broth. I know it myself. Dosing it with Edwards' desiccated soup. Geese stuffed silly for them. Lobsters boiled alive: Do ptake some ptarmigan. Wouldn't mind being a waiter in a swell hotel. Tips, evening dress, halfnaked ladies. May I tempt you to a little more filleted lemon sole, miss Dubedat? Yes, do bedad. And she did bedad. Huguenot name I expect that. A miss Dubedat lived in Killiney I remember. Du, de la, French. Still it's the same fish, perhaps old Micky Hanlon of Moore street ripped the guts out of making money, hand over fist, finger in fishes' gills, can't write his name on a cheque, think he was painting the landscape with his mouth twisted. Moooikill A Aitcha Ha. Ignorant as a kish of brogues, worth fifty thousand pounds.

Stuck on the pane two flies buzzed, stuck.

Glowing wine on his palate lingered swallowed. Crushing in the winepress grapes of Burgundy. Sun's heat it is. Seems to a secret touch telling me memory. Touched his sense moistened remembered. Hidden under wild ferns on Howth. Below us bay sleeping sky. No sound. The sky. The bay purple by the Lion's head. Green by Drumleck. Yellowgreen towards Sutton. Fields of undersea, the lines faint brown in grass, buried cities. Pillowed on my coat she had her hair, earwigs In the heather scrub my hand under her nape, you'll toss me all. O wonder! Coolsoft with ointments her hand touched me, caressed: her eyes upon me did not turn away. Ravished over her I lay, full lips full open, kissed her mouth. Yum. Softly she gave me in my mouth the seedcake warm and chewed. Mawkish pulp her mouth had mumbled sweet and sour with spittle. Joy: I ate it: joy. Young life, her lips that gave me pouting. Soft, warm, sticky grumjelly lips. Flowers her eyes were, take me, willing eyes. Pebbles fell. She lay still. A goat. No-one. High on Ben Howth rhododendrons a nannygoat walking surefooted, dropping currants. Screened under ferns she laughed warmfolded. Wildly I lay on her, kissed her; eyes, her lips, her stretched neck, beating, woman s breasts full in her blouse of nun's veiling, fat nipples upright. Hot I tongued her. She kissed me. I was kissed. All yielding she tossed my hair. Kissed, she kissed me.

Me. And me now.

Instruments, fatties, and other musings

So every once in a while, the CC gets into the mood, and into the nude, and into the...

Hang on! That's not what I wanted to talk about.

Anyway, every once in a while the CC gets into the mood of possessing a kitchen instument that he needs, but since the CC is mortally afraid of becoming one of the Williams-Sonoma crowd, the CC shies away from mortal possession of true-and-tried tactical tools.

The CC happens to be just wrong!

Hail Italy!

We should never have doubted you (as far as food is concerned.) Your governments suck, and have sucked since WWII, but why doubt your food?

Anyway, back to the point.

The CC bought a cheese grater for a party.

The CC also bought some kick-ass parmigiano-reggiano to serve over the risotto.

The CC has been humbled, and acknowledges his need for instruments after understanding the true nature of a cheese grater.

The combination of cheese grater and authentic parmigiano-reggiano over fresh risotto is something to behold!

Here's how it works:

The risotto is served rather warm, the "parmesan" (pardon the Americanism) is shredded fresh with an instrument into such tiny threads that it falls over the rice, and instantly "cooks". The threads of cheese (and they are truly tiny) are so divine that the CC is shocked.

And for you fat-phobic fatties, true parmigiano-reggiano is a hard, skimmed cheese. You probably eat more ten times more fat in one of those crappy "fat-free" yogurts because the US FDA allows companies to advertise "zero" fat if it contains less than one gram of fat per serving.

Even a tablespoon of pure oil is "zero" fat if the CC defines 100,000 servings per tablespoon (get my drift, fatties?)

Consider this a plug for authentic parmigiano-reggiano (and only incidentally, a plug for a good cheese grater.)