The cheese of legend

[desh]

The year I was in 12th grade, my dad was living in North Carolina. Once I went to visit him. We were going shopping, and we passed a cheese store that was offering samples. I ate one cube of whatever they were offering. It was quite good.

I didn't realize how good it was until the next day. I couldn't stop thinking about how much I enjoyed the cheese. But I had already left the state, so I couldn't go back and pick some up. In the years since, I never quite forgot about the cheese, which is amazing, because it's the only taste I have this vivid of a memory of, aside from things I eat all the time. It was very parmesan-like, but maybe not quite as hard, and though it must've been a somewhat milder taste because most cheese shops wouldn't serve cubes of parmesan as samples, I remember it being very sharp. I'm a fan of sharp cheese, and this was a rare cheese that met my sharpness standards.

About a year ago, I thought I'd found it, when rahaeli served me some pecorino pepato. It was quite good, and definitely sharp enough. But after I came home and bought my own, I realized it wasn't the same, partly because it tasted too much like parmesan, and partly because I would've remembered the peppercorns.

But today! Today Whole Foods was serving samples of a cheese I'd never tried before, or so I thought. And I'm now at least 84% sure I've found my cheese! It's called Perano, or perhaps Perrano; the internet doesn't agree on the spelling. It's like a gouda/parmesan hybrid, with nice granular consistency variations and, yes, a very sharp flavor. I had about 5 cubes off of the sample tray, and I can't wait to go buy my own wedge.

Edit: It's really called parrano. Thanks, jdcohen!