Parmesan is a very hard Italian cheese grated over pasta. Grate the parmesan, a block of parmesan, parmesan shavings.
The true kind is Parmigiano Reggiano and the name is protected in Europe, so what is sold as parmesan elsewhere may be anything. It is aged at least a year, and the crystals you bite are amino acids formed as it matures. It is named after Parma.
1nounparmesanA very hard Italian cheese.
“Sprinkle some grated parmesan over the pasta before serving.”
parmesan is a cheese.
Middle French parmesan comes from Latin Parmensis, of Parma, the Italian city where the cheese was made.
Latin
parmēnsis
Vulgar Latin
*parmēsānus
Middle French
parmesan
English, today
parmesan
Borrowed from Middle French parmesan, from an earlier Vulgar Latin parmēsānus, restructuring of Latin parmēnsis (from Latin Parma). Compare Italian parmigiano, Catalan parmesà, Portuguese parmesão, Sicilian parmisanu, Spanish parmesano
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA