the cheeses fo the langhe and piedmont, Italy, Italian

Typical Products of the Langhe > The Cheese

The Cheese

Piedmont maintains secular traditions in the art of cheese – making. The origins of this “science” date back to the mediaeval, to the times of Carlo. The word “cheese” itself derives from the Latin “formalius” which is referred to the shape, since cheese is milk worked upon and then given a certain shape. The most famous of Piedmont cheeses is Gorgonzola, a typical product of the territories that lay between Lombardy and Piedmont. Gorgonzola is followed by other 7 types of cheese recognized with a DOP certificate. Wines that accompany cheeses perfectly well are the classical red wines of the Langa and the sweet “passito” Italian wines.

	Murazzano DOP This type of cheese, produced near Murazzano in Alta Langa, in the province of Cuneo, is one of the DOP-marked cheeses. Originally, it was produced from the sheep milk. Nowadays the “original” version can hardly be found since legally up to 40% of cow milk can be used in the production cycle. The shape of Murazzano DOP is cylindrical, 10-15 cm in the diameter, the cheese is soft and dence. The crust is very subtle and seasoning makes it turn reddish. It is the color that gave the name to the cheese – “rubeola” eventually became “robiola”. The Murazzano cheese is habitually used as a self-standing dish. It is often served with pepper and extravergin olive oil. When seasoned until stale, the cheese can be grated.

	Toma Piemontese DOP This one is a partially – cooked cheese, produced exclusively from cow milk. There are two main types of Toma: one is produced with skimmed milk, the other with whole milk. Toma is marked twice: the first one is that of the origin, and is assigned in the endo of the production cycle. The mark of quality (the paper one) is assigned before the cheese goes on sale. The paper label is an approximated image of a cow, white and blue, with “Toma Piemontese” written on it. The image is put in the center of a white label and the outside borders can be “personalized” by the cheese-maker. The label contains also a code that identifies the cheese – maker, and eventually a comment “raw milk used”. The Toma paste is soft. The cheese has a cylindrical shape, 6-12 cm thick and 15-35 cm in diameter. It weighs from 2 to 8 kg. The crust of the “whole milk” type is smooth and classic. The color is straw – yellow or light brownish. The paste is white and straw – yellow. The taste is sweet and pleasant, the smell is delicate. The paste of Toma made of skimmed milk is slightly hard. It has a cylindrical shape and a smooth crust. It is about 6-12 cm thick, 15-35 cm in diameter. The crust is quite rough and not too elastic. The color varies from straw – yellow to brownish-red. The paste is slightly yellowish with some dark spots. The taste is strong and intense.

	Brus DOP Brus DOP is not a cheese, but a secondary product born from the necessity to reutilise cheese left-overs in everyday housekeeping. Brus appears as a creamy paste and its color varies from ivory white to yellowish. The great Piedmont – Italian dictionary by Vittorio St’Albino (beginning 1800’s) defines Brus as a “sort of cheese with a very strong taste, made with seasoned cheese left-overs, left to ferment and then impasted with brandy, butte and some medicines, and in the end put into small boxes and closed in there. The tradition requires a clay recipient filled with cheese left-overs of different types of cheese, then some grappa has to be added, then everything gets mixed up (exists a special ritual that counts the movements during mixing it up). Then the paste is left to ferment for a long time until the creamy paste is ready. But it’s extremely difficult to find this type of Bruce nowadays. What you can actually find is a paste with a much milder taste, with no brandy added to it (sometimes it is substituted with white wine). Some say that the name originates from the verb “to burn” traduced into the dialect spoken in Piedmont and that’s the word that renders the gustative sensation of him who tastes the spicy Brus. You can easily find Brus on the list of lots of restaurants and still it is a typical product of the pre-Alpine area and of the Alta Langa. It can easily be found all year round even if the best season for the cheese is late winter or spring. If you feel that the taste is particularly intense, the wine you choose should be of a supreme quality. Classical red wines like Barolo, Barbera and Nebbiolo accompany the Brus very well, even though some intenders advice Moscato and Passito. They still repeat an old saying in Piedmont: “Mac l’amor a l’è pi fort che ‘l brus” – “only love can be stronger than Brus”.

	Robiola The kind of cheese, called Robiola, is produced with raw milk, has a soft paste and has a short maturation sycle. In the past few years, after a period of certain difficulties, Robiola, especially produced in the Langhe, has regained its’ popularity, owing much to the tendency of reconstructing antique traditions. Starting from 1982 to all types of Robiola, produced according to a certain standard and in the area of Alta Langa, is being attributed a denomination “Of Murazzano” origin. The Alta Langa has always been a typical area of Robiola production.

	Testun Produced from sheep milk together with some cow mild, this type of cheese, whole or partially skimmed, is commonly used as a dish. The cheese has a cylindrical shape and weights from 4 to 8 kg. Freshly made cheese has a delicate smell which gets more intense with seasoning. The taste is sweet but it becomes slightly spicy with seasoning. This sort of cheese is typical of Mondovì area comprised between the Tanaro and the Vermenagna rivers.

	Sora (also called Sola) This mixed type of cheese, obtained from a mixture of cow and sheep milk, whole or skimmed. It has a rectangular shape and weighs from 1 to 4 kg. The smell is that of a coagulated milk, with some traces of alpine flowers and herbs. The taste is sweet with a tendency to spicy. Seasoned cheese has a slightly bitter aftertaste. Sola is typical of summer alpine pastures in Alta Valle Tanaro and in the zone of Ormea, Val Casotto, Valleys around Mondovì.

Other type of Piedmont DOP Cheeses

	Bra d'Alpeggio DOP (Bra of summer alpine pastures) This type of cheese is not at all different from Bra cheese produced in the plain areas, but for the usage of particular equipment and for the production tecniques. This cheese is produced from milk of cows of the Piendmont breed, raised in small stalls, feed with local herbs. In order to have the milk skimmed, it is left for one night in traditional copper containers. The temperature that it takes for milk to coagulate, is slightly higher and is reached with the use of an open fire. The Bra d’Alpeggio is produced only in the summer time, when the herds are in the mountains, from June to October. Its shape, weight, the crust and the paste are similar to those of the “plain” version of this cheese. The area of production covers the “mountainous” territories of the province of Cuneo.

	Bra DOP This skimmed cheese carries the name of Bra, the city which in the past was the center of the Cuneo cheese trading. Bra cheese is of ancient origins and was once called “cheese of Bra”, “nostrale”, “grana” and simply “formagg”. This cheese is a typical product of cheese factories in the plain and is obtained as a result of coagulation of milk from the two daily milkings and eventually a small percentage of sheep – goat milk, generally pasteurised, with liquid rennet of a calf. The cheese is 30-40 cm in diameter and weighs 6-8 kg. The paste is quite compact, with some holes, elastic. The color varies from non-clear white to straw-yellow for the soft cheese and ochre yellow for the hard one. The crust is subtle, elastic, of a white – straw color for the soft cheese and brown or beige for the seasoned one. The taste is slightly spice when the cheese is soft, and quite spice when it’s hard: this last is usually used once grated. The Bra cheese, as the legend tells it, used to be, until some decades ago, the main cheese used by the Ligurians during the preparation of the Genovese pesto. The production territory covers all the territory of the province of Cuneo and the territory of Villafranca Piemonte in the province of Turin.

	Castelmagno DOP This type of cheese is among the best cheese products of Piedmont, mythical for the experts. It belongs to the group of cheeses prepared with the use of herbs and carries the name of the Castelmagno municipal area where it is being produced from the ancient times. Its origins are wrapped up in the legend, the first one talks about the name which could derive from the sanctuary of Saint Magno, constructed in order to commemorate the Roman soldier who became a martyr in the surrounding mountains. Or it could refer to the Emperor Carl the Great. The truth is that the first cheese was produced in the XIIth century, but at the same time the official papers mention that in the 1277 the Marquis of Saluzzo ordered an annual tax upon this cheese. In 1200 a war between Cuneo and Saluzzo broke up for the possession of some forms of Castelmagno cheese. The war lasted 30 years. And during the 19^th century this cheese appears on the lists of most prestigious restaurants all over Europe. The two great wars that brought the reduction of the plain population, almost interrupted the production which fortunately turned normal the the past few decades and even obtained the denomination of the protected origins in 1996, connecting cheese directly with the following three towns: Castelmagno, Pradleves and Monterosso Grain, small settlements in the upper part of Valle Grana in the province of Cuneo. Produced from the milk of the two daily milkings and eventually a small percentage of sheep goat milk, the cheese forms are left to season in the coves where some get perforated (like the gorgonzola) to provoke the spread of mildews. They say that the incomparable taste is caused by a particular type of herb “evax” or “eves” which is typical of the areas where the cheese is produced. The Castelmagno crust is smooth, straw-yellow, when the cheese is fresh, and it becomes hard and brown when the cheese is seasoned. The paste is not too soft, of a pearl white color and seasoning brings it some bluish spots. The cheese is about 15-20 cm in diameter and weighs 2-7 kg.

	Gorgonzola DOP E' il più celebre tra i prodotti caseari piemontesi. Se ne hanno notizie che risalgono al settimo secolo e nacque, probabilmente, a cavallo del Ticino, lungo la strada delle transumanze. Oggi il centro di produzione è nel novarese, mentre il nome gli viene dalla cittadina lombarda di Gorgonzola. E' stato riconosciuto con legge del 1955: c'è un consorzio di tutela del Gorgonzola con oltre cento soci, infatti ogni forma deve essere marchiata. La leggenda dell'invenzione del Gorgonzola è legata alla sbadataggine di un pastore, che, senza avere gli arnesi adatti alla lavorazione del latte, mise la cagliata ricavata dal poco latte delle mucche stanche (stracche) dal viaggio in un recipiente di fortuna. Quando, dopo qualche mese, tornò all'alpeggio, trovò quel poco latte trasformato in uno stracchino modificato dalle muffe, particolarmente piccante e appetitoso. Il prodotto venne subito apprezzato e poiché era nato nei pressi di Gorgonzola ne prese il nome. Appartiene alla famiglia degli erborinati, così detti perché screziati dal verde delle muffe: al latte vaccino si aggiungono spore di Pénicillium, fermenti lattici e caglio di vitello. Il prodotto esiste in due versioni: quella "dolce", ormai diffusa su tutte le tavole italiane, quella "piccante" o "naturale", più rara, benché sia la ricetta originale, a causa del gusto più forte, poco indicato per il gusto medio dei consumatori. Si presenta con una crosta ruvida, umida, tendente al rossiccio quando è matura; all'interno la pasta è di colore bianco, screziato di verde blu a causa delle muffe, più o meno cremosa a seconda della stagionatura. Viene usato in mille modi nella cucina piemontese: dal semplice spuntino con del pane che ne esalta il sapore inconfondibile, all'abbinamento con la mostarda d’uva; senza dimenticare che il Gorgonzola è da sempre l'elemento immancabile come condimento della polenta, magari accompagnato da un buon vino rosso invecchiato.

	Raschera DOP Formaggio delle montagne cuneesi, prodotto per lo più sulle Alpi Marittime attorno a Mondovì e in particolare sulle pendici dell'Alpe Raschera. E' uno dei grandi formaggi piemontesi, riconosciuto a denominazione d'origine. Si produce con il latte vaccino, con la possibilità di aggiunte di latte ovino o caprino, di una o due mungiture giornaliere, preferibilmente crudo e proveniente da animali di razza bruno - alpina piemontese. Il Raschera ha crosta grigio - bruna, che può presentare tracce rossastre con la stagionatura. La pasta è di colore avorio, elastica, con piccoli occhi irregolari e presenta marcati sentori di foraggio e latticello. Da giovane è formaggio quasi dolce; con la stagionatura tende leggermente al piccante. Si presenta con forme cilindriche di 30-40 cm di diametro, o parallelepipedo di 40 cm di lato e un peso di circa 5-8 kg. Per differenziarsi dalla varietà d'alpeggio la forme sono avvolte in una carta di colore verde (gialla per la versione d'alpeggio).