Cheese from Piedmont

It’s quite possible that even an encyclopaedia wouldn’t suffice to detail all the dairy products of the Piedmont region, a region which boasts 9 DOP (Denomination of Protected Origin) cheeses and 54 ‘traditional’ cheeses – that is those with a very precise identity. Here we cover a few of the most notable ones which you can also find in our on-line shop.

Gorgonzola

Is a cheese made of uncooked curd which is produced using the purest, high-quality cow’s milk.
The cheese is a characteristic straw-white colour, streaked with green: the streaks are due to the process of mould germination which forms the "Penicillum roqueforti" mould. The quality of the milk is essential to the development of the mould: if it is tainted by disinfectant, pesticides or antibiotics the particular flavours of the product could be lost.
The DOP for Gorgonzola applies only to Piedmont and Lombardy: the cheese takes its name from the town of Gorgonzola (on the outskirts of Milan), and its history is furnished with several legends dating from before the year 1000 which feature inn-keepers who are either careless or wishing to make an easy profit. The legends emphasize chance as being a common occurrence in the birth of many food products. A more concrete reason for the emergence of the Gorgonzola cheese was that the town was a fixed stopping place for resting the herds on their seasonal migration from the summer Alpine pastures to the plains of the Po Valley – so it was an ideal place for producing excellent cheese. Gorgonzola cheese differs according to the length of maturation: the ‘dolce’ cheese is creamy and soft and must be ripened for at least 2 months; the ‘piccante’ type, with a more crumbly and compact texture and more veins resulting in a more decisive flavour has to be matured for at least a further 3 months. Gorgonzola should be brought to room temperature at least half an hour before eating so that its flavour and aroma can be fully enjoyed.

Gorgonzola

Castelmagno

is a half-fat, pressed cheese, with a semi-hard texture, produced from full-fat cow’s milk (on rare occasions small amounts of sheep and goats’ milk can be added). Originating in the Alta Valle Grana, in the Cuneo province, this cheese has its origins in the thirteenth century.
The DOP is given for a particularly precise area: the cheese can only be produced and matured in the municipalities of Monterosso, Pradleves and Castelmagno – so highlighting how rare and highly-prized it is. The cheese forms are cylindrical with flat sides, and they weigh from 2 to 7 kilos. The maturity of the cheese affects the crust which can be thin and of a colour which varies from ochre-white to yellow, or red, or can be much darker due to the mould and the thickening of the rind as it ages. The cheese itself is a pearly or ivory white and is crumbly if the cheese is fresh; it is a yellow-ochre with greenish or blue veins if it has been aged.
Castelmagno cheese is a naturally veined cheese, but it acquires this characteristic and a distinctive and piquant taste only with the passing of time: the minimum ageing period in the cellar is 2 months but it can take as long as 5 months to obtain a product recognized as being one of the kings of the Italian cheese-making tradition.

Castelmagno

Raschera

cheese takes its name from a lake and pastureland at the foot of Mount Mongioie, in Cuneo province. It is an uncooked, half-fat, pressed cheese, made with cow’s milk and the possible addition of small quantities of sheep and goat’s milk to accentuate the flavour.
Raschera cheese has ancient origins too. It is produced across the whole of the Cuneo province and if produced entirely in mountainous areas at altitudes of over 900 metres it can have the words “d’alpeggio” (from mountain pastures) added to its name.
There are two kinds of Raschera cheese: one is square and the other round and they differ slightly. Generally the square cheese has a more delicate flavour while the round one has a more pronounced flavour, is more perfumed and is easier to age. The cheese is ripened for at least one month, to obtain quite a firm, elastic and perfumed paste, with irregular and sparse holes; the piquancy becomes more pronounced the longer the ageing, as does the colouring of the crust which becomes covered with the characteristic reddish mould.
The traditional place for the ageing process is the “sella”, an underground room where the constant humidity and temperature create ideal conditions for the particular flavours and aromas of the cheese to form. Raschera is excellent for the cheese-board, but it can also be enjoyed in recipes in its melted form.

Raschera