Iron Chef America: Battle Parmigiano Reggiano
09 10 2007Iron Chef Mario Batali and Chef Andrew Carmellini battled it out in Iron Chef America’s Battle Parmigiano Reggiano last night, and it was probably the best ICA battle I’ve seen in a long long time.
Carmellini, an italian-style chef born in Cleveland, and Batali had it out in an all-out battle involving a whole lot of Parmigiano Reggiano. People here in the US tend to end up eating Parmigian cheese – and this Parmigiano Reggiano that was ICA is a completely different beast. They had monsterous cheese wheels imported from Emilia-Romagna, in Italy. This is the only place that you can actually get authentic Parmigiano Reggiano – and unless it’s imported from there or some other distributor, it’s not authentic Parmigiano Reggiano cheese. Alton even popped up and showed the markings from something like an Italian cheese authority, the Consorzio, who uses a wooden mallet to grade the Parmigiano Reggiano. Crazy stuff. anyway, ICA had three different types of Parmigiano Reggiano – 2 year old, 4 year old and 6 year old cheese. I’m sure these have exotic Italian names, but they didn’t disclose them on the show.
So, great battle, great ingredient, and NO SEAFOOD! I’m a huge advocate of food without fish, being allergic to both shellfish and anything else I’ve eaten that swims in the ocean, so I was very happy about this. I also enjoyed when Batali lit half a wheel of cheese on fire with some alcohol – this was to smooth the inside of it out, and make way for a pasta dish plated inside the wheel. Both chef’s pulled extremely saliva-inducing dishes – I would have loved to be there. I can dream, right? The judges didn’t really say anything bad about any of the dishes, and even mentioned how hard it would be to declare a winner. In the end, Batali won, by one or two points, beating out Carmellini in the taste category, losing one point to him in plating, and tying with him in originality. All in all, it was a fantastic battle. 
