Talk:Parmesan

Can we talk about the very specific numbers such as 24 cheeses high and 90 cheeses wide? WTH is going on? If these are established standards it should be mentioned. On the other hand, the whole Production section reads like it was transcribed from documentary subtitles

A few days ago, the European Union Court decided that the practice known as "Italian Sounding" is no longer permitted. Therefore, you can no longer translate "Parmigiano" into "Parmesan" because it is illegal in Europe. Moreover, if a cheese is not "Parmigiano," but rather an imitation, it is no longer allowed to label such imitations with the name "Parmesan." This decision aims to protect the originality and uniqueness of this excellent Italian product. Please update the page accordingly.

Thank you, Anna

Livorno, Tuscany 31-Oct-2023

This might warrant a mention somewhere as something that applies within the EU, but it has no relevance beyond that. It's basically legal trivia about a single (albeit large) jurisdiction. The general style of cheese continues, and will continue, to be usually called "Parmesan" in the US, Canada, UK, Australia, etc., etc.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:02, 24 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

Parmesan is, by definition, not Parmigiano-Reggiano. The name of the original Italian cheese is protected within the EU and the Parmesan name refers to bootleg cheese made outside the designated area and specifications. They don't look the same, nor do they taste the same. For example, Kraft makes "Parmesan", as does (in Canada) Saputo; both are vastly inferior to the real thing. The article's name should be changed, and the article modified to reflect the differences between the cheeses. 198.154.189.18 (talk) 19:28, 4 January 2024 (UTC)Reply

Yes, these articles need to be split, pretty obviously. "Parmesan" is a general style of cheese, like "Swiss" and "Cheddar", and the vast bulk of it is made outside of Italy. "Parmagiano Reggiano" is a protected trade designation for a specific regional Italian cheese, which happens to be the inspiration for Parmesan-in-general and which is, basically, the quintessential standard against which all Parmesan is measured. They really aren't the same subject. This situation is precisely the same as sparkling wine and Champagne.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:00, 24 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

I think that the structure would be a parent article of "Parmesan" for the cheese-type and a subsidiary article on specifically Parmigiano Reggiano i.e. it would, in WP terms, have similarities between Brandy and cognac I think. DeCausa (talk) 22:39, 24 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

@DeCausa: and another important thing to solve is the following: in the ingredients of Italian food pages should be written "Parmesan" or "Parmigiano Reggiano"? IP address and SMcCandlish: the correct spelling is Parmigiano Reggiano (without dash), don't make any more confusion, thank you very much. JacktheBrown (talk) 22:53, 24 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

"Parmesan" and "Parmigiano Reggiano" can mean two different things and so should have two different articles. DeCausa (talk) 23:01, 24 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

@DeCausa: so, if all goes well, we should ask a bot for help (for Italian food pages containing "Parmesan", with the wikilink), but now let's proceed in order and think about what to do. JacktheBrown (talk) 23:05, 24 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

• Please see this closed thread at the MOS talk page for further background. DeCausa (talk) 22:57, 24 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

@DeCausa: great, very good! JacktheBrown (talk) 22:59, 24 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

The trouble is, at least in the UK, people always call Parmigiano-Reggiano (as well as non-Italian imitations) "Parmesan", as they have done for centuries, long before the rather cumbersome Italian legal name was dreamed up (pretty recently, I think). Johnbod (talk) 04:16, 25 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

But they don’t; in my experience this is limited to older folks, who remember the days when the little tubs of parmesan were all you could get in the UK. Parmesan came first, and the name stuck with those used to it, but now you can get genuine Parmigiano almost everywhere. And this article itself already evidences that use of that name dates back centuries.

In any event, per WP:DICT, WP articles should be about a ‘thing’, not a word, and Parmigiano and Parmesan are clearly different, distinct, separate “things” and therefore require separate articles. This article currently conflates the two, and contains lots of flaws as a consequence - for example, its short title is “Italian hard cheese”, yet Parmesan if very often not Italian at all, and products so labelled tend to be ready-grated and hence not hard. MapReader (talk) 07:12, 25 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

You always could get "genuine Parmigiano" (outside wartime) and it was always called "Parmesan" - see the OED. And it still is. They don't use "Parmigiano Reggiano" in speech even in Italy. Johnbod (talk) 13:36, 25 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

DeCausa's refusal to move the MOS thread comments here will cause me to repeat myself, but, no, Johnbod, that is not the trouble. There are two types of cheese: Parmigiano-Reggiano and the cheap imitations. Because they are different cheeses they should have different articles, just as we have a separate article for Grana Padano despite its similarity to the others. One of the two types of cheese is unambiguously named Parmigiano Reggiano, and that's what its article should be titled. The cheap substitute is only ever called Parmesan (despite my departed mother in law consistently pronouncing it Parmesian), and that's what its article should be titled. Of course it can have a hatnote to the other article. But the fact that the names are confused in some places is irrelevant to whether we should have separate articles; articles are about things (here cheeses), not the names of things, per WP:NOTDICT. So we should have two articles, about the two kinds of cheese, not one article about cheeses that happen to sometimes be called Parmesan. Once we have two articles, the choice of which names to use is obvious. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:42, 25 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

I disagree, & that won't work well, because Parmesan will always get all the views, whatever it is about. Look at Emmental cheese. Is there a room for a solution like Swiss-type cheese, or Swiss cheese (North America)? The first would have to bring in Grana Padano & a few more obscure ones. Johnbod (talk) 13:36, 25 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

Along those lines, how about Parmigiano Reggiano or Parmigiano-Reggiano (MOS:COMMONALITY between American and British usage – it appears on packaging in Britain) for the one type of cheese and Parmesan cheese (non-European) for the others? Parmesan and Parmesan cheese should then redirect to the cheese from Parma, not the imitations. Ham II (talk) 14:30, 25 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

It's an Italian name so we can follow the punctuation on it.wikipedia: Parmigiano Reggiano. As for cheese from Parma vs commercial imitations from elsewhere: if the cheese from Parma is also notable under the name Parmesan (I have no idea) then it should also have a separate article. The fact that it has the same name as the commercial imitations is what disambiguators are for; the coincidence of naming should not influence the choice of topics for articles. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:21, 25 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

It works fine for every other subject like this, and there are lots of them (anywhere any protected trade designation has come into play, with more than a trivial level of public awareness, within a broader commodity category of similar stuff). We don't really care which pages gets more traffic; hatnotes exist for a reason. And there is no way that the specific protected-designation Italian specialty cheese is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC of "Parmesan"; the average person doesn't even know Parmagiana Reggiano exists (same with Grana Pandano, though us cooks are well aware of both). All that said, the world would not end if one of the two articles that need to result here was named "Parmesan-style cheese" or something like that, though that would obviously fail WP:COMMONNAME. (But COMMONAME is not the only criterion to consider, so that might not be a totally overriding concern). The important part is that we stop WP:COATRACKing Parmagiana Reggiano into the general Parmesan subject, treating them as if they are synonymous.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:10, 25 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

@David Eppstein: "DeCausa's refusal to move the MOS thread comments here...", wtf? Since when is it my job to move threads around? Do it yourself. I just gave an opinion that a link was good enough. If moving a thread is beneath you that's not my problem. DeCausa (talk) 08:34, 25 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

I propose to create two separate pages: one entitled "Parmesan" (this one), obviously including Parmigiano Reggiano as primary information, and the other entitled "Parmesan (US)"; the first page would remain unchanged and, among other things, would solve the problem of all those pages that have the word and wikilink "Parmesan" within them (such as, for example, many Italian food pages), which would remain unchanged, as the wikilink would take the reader to the "Parmesan" page (this one); for the second page, I'm sure there are American experts who can create it. In addition, a hatnote should be created on the first page to indicate "Parmesan (US)". In my opinion this is the best solution. JacktheBrown (talk) 00:30, 26 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

Except that Parmesan style cheese that doesn't fall under the DOP is not limited to the US, nor North America. The awful disambiguator on Swiss cheese (North America) should not be repeated, and the idea that the term "Emmentaler" is reserved only for the protected variety is not supported by the facts, so let's nit repeat the same mistakes here. Also, let's not use The word "imitation" to describe the non-DOP generics, because imitation cheese means something else entirely. Acknowledging that it's a generic hard cheese in the style of Parmigiana Reggiano is enough. (Also, being sold pre-grated doesn't knock it out if being a hard cheese; the term is not a literal measure and has to do with moisture content.) oknazevad (talk) 11:22, 2 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

I think the right choices are "parmesan" (without disambiguator) for the generic hard cheese, "Parmigiano Reggiano" for the DOP version, a line in the lead of "Parmigiano Reggiano" with a source saying that some people call it "parmesan", and a hatnote on "parmesan" pointing to "Parmigiano Reggiano". See WP:NCDAB: we don't need explicit disambiguation when we can use natural disambiguation. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:25, 2 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

Let's decide by the end of the year, please. JacktheBrown (talk) 18:25, 2 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

This seems an absurd fact to have on Wikipedia. Anyone can call any food “Practically Perfect” and it’s true as long as they believe it. I think we should keep Wikipedia free of such opinion claims, personally. 2001:56A:FCFE:E200:30E8:568A:1C75:B950 (talk) 21:48, 3 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

This is correctly worded as an WP:NPOV statement. Whether you agree or not that Parmesan is in fact the "king of cheeses", it has certainly been called that fairly often. This is no different from noting that Coca-Cola has been promoted as the "real thing" or that Edward Kennedy Ellington was called "duke". Of course, it is not the only cheese that has been called that -- cf. King of cheeses. --Macrakis (talk) 15:19, 5 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

I moved the mention of Parmesan as collateral to the Collateral article. Almost anything of value can be given as collateral (see that article), so this is not a special property of Parmesan cheese. Would you expect the wheat article or the bulldozer article or the jewelry article to mention that those things can be used as collateral? ... and that in the case of jewelry the bank might keep it in their vaults? We also don't mention that the ratio of a cheese's circumference to its diameter is π, since that is true of any round object, or that it can crush you to death -- which is true of any heavy object. The fact that there's a news article about a parmesan-crushing incident doesn't mean that it should be mentioned in the article. --Macrakis (talk) 17:35, 4 August 2024 (UTC)Reply