Write how you eat: gruyere or gruyere, emmental or emmenthal? With holes or without?

2023 Author: Cody Thornton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-11-26 19:13

Let's start immediately by revealing the arcano: this week's FOR MI DA BI LE news is that Gruyere is hermaphrodite, in the sense that it is both masculine and feminine. And again: you can also say (and write) gruyere, with the u of URKA!

Also in the regional declensions gruèra or grivièra (in Italy it is produced in Val d’Aosta and Lombardy) it is a loan adapted from the French gruyère [pronounced ġrüi ̯ èer, with the final e well drawn, please].

The real news, however, is that gruyere or gruyere, if you prefer, does not have holes in taxation: the original gruyère - hard cheese made from raw milk, slow maturing and produced in the region of the same name. Switzerland of the canton Friborg - it is indeed without holes.

What happened? Maybe the holes are formed during the transport on the Simplon Pass ?! Never, dear friends. It happened that [according to a source from beyond the Alps during an amiable conversation à la table] in the spoken language the French cousins made a bit of confusion and associated with gruyère another fromage suisse: the emmental, from the homonymous region of the canton Berne; the latter yes, it has some nice holes …

As it is, as it is not, in the end with the generic term of gruyère the cousins mean both cheeses, emmental and gruyère, with and without holes.

And we Italians did the same: oh, if the French say that Gruyère has holes, then it will be the same for our Gruyère / Gruyère, right? No, no, wrong, blue mistake …

Let's focus on the official holder of the holes, in fact: his Majesty the Emmental. Or emmenthal with the ac? Uppercase or lowercase? Let's try to dig some spider out of the hole.

The spelling with ac - it's my gamble, eh, don't crucify me [crucify me ???] - could be a legacy of Bärndütsch, the Swiss-German language spoken in that canton. But in all official definitions, the ac has now disappeared.

Although it is a proper name, I would opt for the lowercase, at least to differentiate the cheese (lowercase) from the topònimo (Uppercase; and come on, I also made the joke with the mouse talking about cheese …).

Returning to the emmental, beware that we are about to enter a nice mess: the Swiss - who have not been able to defend the denomination despite (rightly) claiming its paternity since the distant fifteenth century - have now run for cover obtaining the Dop (Denomination d ' Protegée origin) at least for the term emmentaler; the need was to differentiate from the already recognized denominations where emmental appears: allgäuer emmental (produced in Germany, Aop), emmental de Savoie (France, Igp) and emmental français est-central (France, Igp purely).

So, in summary: the 'emmental, the Swiss cheese par excellence (I think Swiss, I see cheese with holes), has no recognition at home except as an emmentaler. Come on, life sometimes reserves those surprises …

Okay, to cut off the rat's head (see above), if you want cheese with holes you can always go for a ride to the supermarket and wrap yourself at the refrigerated counter between a Maasdam (also called Maasdammer), an emmenthal with ac, a Dop emmentaler, a Bavarian emmental (otherwise known as Swiss with holes) or, finally, a nice Leerdammer from Holland.

One recommendation, however, dear friends: as long as, between one hole and the next, you don't end up like the Philadelphia maniac (in the sense of the city, not the cheese) … I recommend.