Science Has Unlocked the Secrets to Parmesan, A Dollar Slice’s Best Friend

Parmesan cheese is one of the keys to great pizza. Whether sprinkled on before or after cooking, truly great Parmesan elevates mankind's favorite food to a level that mozzarella alone cannot achieve.

The nation of Italy has gone so far as to define, by law, what exactly qualifies as the king of Parmesan cheeses, "Parmigiano-Reggiano." Likewise, the European Union limits what can be designated "Parmesan." They regulate it and even restrict the places where the real thing can be made. But now the rest of us can get in on the action because two scientists have just identified a "molecular blueprint" for the taste of Parmesan. In an article entitled "Quantitation of Key Tastants and Re-engineering the Taste of Parmesan Cheese"—which doesn't exactly roll off the tongue—Hedda Hillmann and Thomas Hofmann of the Technical University of Munich describe what makes good Parmesan taste great.

The point of all this? "This molecular blueprint of a Parmesan's chemosensory signature… opens new avenues for a more scientifically directed taste improvement of cheese by tailoring manufacturing parameters," they say. In other words, they've reverse engineered the best cheese so now we can all make it, even if we live nowhere near the approved provinces of Parma, Reggio Emilia, Bologna, Modena, and Mantua.

And our pizza may one day be all the better for it.

The scientists asked a panel of 12 experts to rate the intensity of different tastes found in Parmesan, including sweetness, saltiness, bitterness, a so-called "burning" sensation, and the recently described taste called "kokumi," which is best described as heartiness or mouthfulness. Then the researchers screened cheese extracts for compounds that produce those tastes. The result is a molecular blueprint linking molecular compounds to flavors. The desired "burning" flavor? It comes from five biogenic amines including histamine, cadaverine, and putrescine. The saltiness of Parmesan is simply high levels of sodium, potassium, and chloride ions. And that mouthfulness or kokumi sensation is gamma-glutamyl peptides doing their thing.

Can this be used to make a cheese that is virtually the same as the real stuff? Apparently so. The scientists recreated a cheese-like matrix by pressing together the desired compounds into isolated fats and proteins. The tasters found the concoction to be almost identical to authentic Parmesan.

Chemistry World spoke with Michael Tunick of the US Department of Agriculture about the study. He said, 'The information in this study and others like it could be used to engineer food that tastes the same as the genuine product."

So, don't worry, pizza. If all the cows in Italy are obliterated in a horrible, post-nuclear disaster, we're covered. Parmesan will live on.