Il formaggio

I had a second chance to work with the cheese on Friday. This was after we did a cheese tasting for a large group of Germans on Thursday. The goat cheese (caprino) is made using a chevre culture – resulting in a soft creamy cheese that then goes through many different stages of development and processes.Of course, there is a fresh chevre and others that are aged; some are made in ash, with peperocini and wrapped in walnut leaves. The sheep cheese (pecorino), is made in a much firmer style – it is made as fresh (pecorino fresco), pecorino semistagionato (aged 30-30 days), pecorino stagionato (aged 60 + days), and then also made in ash, walnut leaves and in olive oil with peppercorns.
As Ulisse has explained, cheese making requires much love. Each cheese must be washed with a salt water solution every few days during the curing process. This is done by hand, scrubbing it with a wet cloth and then flipping it to allow it to evenly cure. Each cheese weighs two to 4 pounds and there are easily 300 cheeses in the active curing room; with an additional 500 or so in longer term storage which must be washed every week or so. It’s quite an impressive operation. We also make ricotta from the leftover whey of the sheep milk – producing 7-10 kilos with each production of cheese. At first glance, cheese making appears to be very scientific; you must measure moisture and acidity and must allow fairly precise amounts of time in between each stage of the process. In reality, cheese making is an art form – there are no absolutes and the cheese maker must use their intuition to arrive at the right result. It is a process that can only be learned by observing and participating for a long period of time; even then, some will not be suited for the life of the cheese maker.