In case you're serving pasta tonight...

Here's some news you can use:

PARMESAN: The European Court of Justice ruled Tuesday that only the tasty, crumbly cheese that has been made for some 800 years near the Italian city of Parma can legally be called Parmesan.

So what do we call the bland, machine-grated cheese in our local cheese case?

More info from AP, Financial Times and China View.

— Veronique de Turenne

Photo: Guido Krzikowski/Bloomberg News

Comments

[Luca Celada]

Something else!

[luca Celada]

How 'bout:

PARM-a-multinational-corporation-bio-engineered-this-"food"-product-for-profit- SAN

[Anthrodiva]

It already has a name, 'Shaker Cheese.'

[Bob Williams]

A similar incident surfaced years ago in the U.K. over the name "Blue Stilton" and it was resolved that only blue cheeses from Leicestershire can legally be called "Blue Stilton". The rest of the blue cheeses made elsewhere in the UK were to be called simply blue cheese minus the "Stilton".

In the case of Parmesan cheese, once it can be determined what kind of cheese Parmesan cheese is, then the other makers of this particular type of cheese would then use that name while leaving the cheesemakers from Parma holding a trademark on theirs.

The problem remains that everyone has been calling this particular type of cheese by the name of "parmesan" for so long, no other name can be recalled. Perhaps a clumsy solution is to call the other parmesan cheeses simply "san" minus the "Parme" or "Parma"? But that seems too clumsy to be likely.