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| Region or state | Lombardia |
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Raspadüra is a way to servegrana cheese, presenting it as very thin sheets, scraped with a specialknife from a wheel ofGranone Lodigiano or from a "young" cheese of the grana family, that is aged from four to six months.[1][2]
Raspadüra is typical ofLodi's gastronomy, but it is also spread in the neighboring territories ofPavia andCremona provinces, where it keeps the same name. Raspadüra is usually served as anappetizer, often accompanied bycold cuts,nuts ormushrooms, but it can also be used to garnish first courses such asrisotto orpolenta.[1]
Raspadüra was born as a poor food: in the past it was made from imperfect Granone Lodigiano cheese wheels, while today healthy wheels are used, aged enough to be cut without crumbling.[3]
Granone Lodigiano cheeses produced in the casere of the farmsteads, within the sixth month were checked for seasoning faults: they could present defects of compactness, cracks or internal bubbles, which could be felt by hammering the cheeses: then thecheesemaker discarded the defective cheeses, which were cut in half and sometimes given to the farmers of the farmstead, but more commonly taken to Lodi to be sold as raspadüra. Therefore, raspadüra was first a by-product of the processing of grana cheese, a low cost product for the poor who could not afford grated cheese, while now it is a dish also sought after bygourmets.
In many towns in theprovince of Lodi, on market days, it is still possible to watch the "raspada", the scraping of young grana cheeses (generally aged between 4 and 6 months), which is done on the spot at the customer's request.
Raspadüra is a term from the westernLombard language which in Italian means "scraping": the thin sheets of raspadüra are, in fact, progressively scraped from the surface of the half-cheese with the help of a manual lathe that turns the cheese on itself, and of a special flexible, flat and curved knife that in the colder months can also be heated, so as to obtain soft ribbons of grana cheese that curl up on themselves.