The best prosciuttos and mozzarellas are from Italy. The best teas are from China. Why can’t anyone who wants to recreate the process anywhere they want? In a greenhouse? In a factory?
In: 22
Because there are so many factors in play with some products that it would be nearly impossible to recreate them all. Take Parmesan cheese for example, not only are there differences in the process, climate, and the cows that live in that region, but there are even certain bacteria that only grow on the grass the cows eat there that have an impact on the cheese that’s ultimately produced. Some organisms are easy to bring into an artificial environment and be cultivated by people. Yeast is so easy to cultivate that you can do it at home with a sourdough starter. On the other hand, plants like Wasabi are notoriously hard to farm, to the point where most wasabi you can buy is actually not real Wasabi. Wine is probably a good example of a product that we know how to control pretty well. By being selective about the region, climate, soil, etc., wine makers can influence the taste of wine a lot. But it’s probably never perfect, as there will always be smaller variables they can’t account for.
Most of it comes down to environmental conditions, like humidity, temperature, soil type/nutrition, the type of water used and it’s source, etc. It’s really hard to replicate every little detail. Then there’s the case of legality, especially in Italy. There are laws in place that protect these processes from being replicated. For example, that’s why Champagne isn’t technically Champagne unless it’s from the Champagne region. Italians are very prideful of their quality products, hence why they protect them to such degree. They don’t want any cheap “mozzarella” tarnishing the name.
You can recreate them… but part of the enjoyment is knowing what you’re eating has come from a certain area and has history and memories associated with it that recreated food cannot match. If I gave you some decent Italian mozzarella but told you it was from the cornershop I’m sure you wouldn’t enjoy it as much as if you were in a fine dining restaurant even though it’s the same product.
Wine is a classic example. Plenty of YouTube videos with wine experts and double blind taste tests show that most experts can barely tell a red from a white.
The best cheese is from Gloucestershire :).
I blame the water. Had a friend that owned a pizza place in NY, was great. He expanded out of NY, it’s not nearly as good even tho all the ingredients are the same. Besides the water.
Growing stuff included, but soil makes a huge difference also.
Maybe you could in a greenhouse. In fact some plants are grown indoors to achieve better quality or at least specific qualities not usually seen in that climate. But it’s expensive to do this. It could be equally or more expensive than importing the “authentic” food from the original location so if you start a company making very controlled foods meant to taste like French wine or Italian cheese you might need to get customers to pay you equal or more than *actual imported products* and that might be difficult to market…
In reality it makes more sense to embrace the differences. California winemakers grow some good grapes and make some good wine. They can just deal with whatever differences exist because of California’s different climate and soil and water compared to France and produce a good product at a good price. Or they could spend a fortune and waste energy building giant greenhouses and creating artificial light and either adding or removing water to create conditions exactly like France… why? So they can sell an extremely expensive bottle of wine that is “just like French wine” for a customer who is perfectly able to go one aisle over and *just buy real French wine instead*? It’s not a good financial decision.
I used to work at a high end deli in London that sold a lot of the best charcuterie and cheese from across Europe.
Like a few other people have said small regional differences in bacteria, plant life, along with several other factors etc that exist in these regions are not possible to replicate elsewhere.
As an example, there’s a specific prosciutto called San Daniele we sold, which the makers of it used to say owed it’s flavour (it was quite unique to the others) to the specific winds that blew from the mountains down to the Adriatic where they cured all their meat.
On the cheese side, when you’re dealing with some small artisanal cheese producers they don’t operate the way large manufacturers do. Recipes aren’t measured to the gram and are a bit more by ‘feel’. Batch to batch a lot of the cheese we sold would have slightly varied flavours.
Edit: also as some other have noted some of these products have effective legal protection. AOC (France) or DOP (Italy) are legal measures (think like Champagne with wine) in place that limit the production of certain specific cheeses to one area or one single producer.
They can, and often have; they used to say that only France had the soils and weather conditions to produce fine wine, until the “Judgement of Paris”: in a blind tastetest, the world’s greatest wine tasters consistently rated wines from California’s Napa Valley over the wines from France. It was the end of France’s perceived domination of wine production and also the end of blind taste testing – Italy and China don’t want their products tested that way so that they’re not at risk of losing to Wisconsin and Indonesia (or w/e, I don’t really know about tea.)
Processes and conditions CAN be replicated. What can’t usually be replicated is the people, the expertise. And it’s in their interest not to allow the processes and conditions be studied in great detail. Few producers want people on the other side of the world to have the knowledge needed to recreate a luxury food.
As a counterexample, there are cured pork products from Spain that many people like better than Parma ham from Italy. And you’ll find plenty of people who think the best teas come from, say, Africa or Sri Lanka. California wines have become very good as their makers gained generations of experience.
I cant speak to cheese but i can speak to french bread. There are 2 big factors in french bread being better than a north american baguette. The first is the mineral content in the water. The second is facility conditions IE the yeast content in the air.
Latest Answers