Northern Italian cheeses and pizza

North

The marriage between cheese and pizza is well tested and solid one: dairy products are in fact a fundamental ingredient, capable of supporting any combination, whether with vegetables, with cold cuts, or with dried fruit. Depending on the consistency of the pasta (whether they are more seasoned or creamy) and the flavour (from the sweet notes of milk and butter, to the more savoury and almost spicy ones), they add character to the topping or sauce and manage to create memorable results. We went to explore the excellent cheeses of the regions of Northern Italy and we decided to go a little off the well-known and comfortable tracks of Parmigiano Reggiano or Grana Padano which, flaked or grated, cooked or out of the oven, are by now a presence that has become a great classic. So here is an overview of a series of cheeses - some almost obvious, others less so - to pay attention to for new combinations and toppings.

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Unmistakable for its bluish-green and/ or grey-blue veins, due to the marbling process that uses the fungal strain Penicillium Roqueforti, Gorgonzola takes its name from the homonymous city in the province of Milan. Its history dates back to the X-XII century. A PDO branded product, it is produced in Lombardy (provinces of Bergamo, Brescia, Como, Cremona, Lecco, Lodi, Milan, Pavia, Varese, Monza) and Piedmont (Biella, Cuneo, Vercelli, Novara, Verbano-Cusio-Ossola and in 31 municipalities belonging to the province of Alessandria). Distinct in the Dolce and Piccante types, it is obtained by pasteurising cow's milk, inoculated with milk enzymes and with a suspension of Penicillium spores and selected yeasts, then adding calf rennet. After the curd is broken, which is left to drain of the whey, the mass is put into perforated molds for 24 hours, called fasciaruoli, and subjected to dry salting for a few days at a temperature of 18-24°C (65-75°F). It is precisely in the aging phase that the varieties and strains of Penicillium responsible for the classic cheese paste develop.

The shape is cylindrical with flat faces, gray and/or pink crust; the paste is white and straw-coloured, with streaks due precisely to the development of molds with characteristic veins. On the palate, the flavour varies from sweet or slightly spicy to very spicy. If there are no doubts that Gorgonzola is an excellent table cheese, to be consumed alone, it is also true that there are many gastronomic preparations with it as the protagonist and enhance it, even when cooked. In the sweet version, it is one of the 4 dairy products used for the 4-cheese pizza and is probably the one that, among the 4, manages to leave the palate sweetened but without banality, given the herbal notes. Excellent on pizza also combined with walnuts, as well as with typically winter vegetables, such as radicchio. In a spicy version, it is worth trying it in combination with the docile character of ricotta, which can also be accompanied by herbs or spinach, to recall the green of the streaks.

Stracchino

Produced with whole cow's milk and aged for a maximum of 30 days, it has Lombard origins and owes its name to the dialectal term "stracch" (tired), referring to the cheese that was once produced, during stops along the transhumance routes, with the little whole raw milk just milked from the tired cows. It has a soft but compact paste, a parallelepiped shape and variable size. Precisely in relation to its origins – it had to be prepared quickly, without heating the milk and without long coagulation and purging times – the milk is left to coagulate with calf rennet for about half an hour. After the curd is broken up in two successive phases, the paste is poured into molds and stewing begins for about a day. When the surface is covered with white mold - an indication that it has reached the right consistencythe salting phase begins and then the seasoning phase. After about two weeks, it is put on the market. It has a white, creamy paste, with a sweet and buttery, some- times slightly acidic taste: it can obviously be enjoyed a few days after preparation. The best, from a gustatory and "historical" point of view, is the "old-fashioned" one from the Orobic Valleys, protected by a Slow Food Presidium, which brings together a group of small farmers and cheesemakers determined to preserve the traditional recipe.

The taste is soft and creamy in the under-crust, more pungent towards the heart, where the paste is more compact and crumbly; the scent recalls that of pastures and notes of hay.

Taleggio Cheese

It is one of the oldest Italian cheeses: its origins probably date back to before the 10th century. Originally from Val Taleggio, from which it takes its name, this cheese was already traded in the 13th century, as evidenced by various documents of the time. Its production, initially arising from the need to conserve milk that exceeded the need for self-consumption, took place with the milk of cows returning from summer pastures, called for this reason "stracche" (see above, regarding stracchino: the family is, in fact, the same), for the long distance travelled. Until the beginning of the 20th century it was even called "square stracchino di Milano", then changed to Taleggio to protect its pro- duction process and name. Compared to the beginning, today the production area has gradually expanded and, in addition to the Lombard provinces of Bergamo, Brescia, Como, Cremona, Lecco, Lodi, Milan and Pavia, Taleggio is also produced in Piedmont, in the province of Novara and in Veneto, in the province of Treviso. Among the very few Italian cheeses with a washed rind, it is produced with raw or pasteurized cow's milk. The rennet used is that of veal, which is added to heated milk. The curd is broken up in two steps: a coarser one, followed by a second one to obtain a mass whose grains are the size of a hazelnut. It is then placed in square molds of about 18-20 cm (7” – 8”) each side, placed on slightly inclined sloping tables, so as to facilitate the drainage of the whey. Then follows the stewing phase, in which the wheels are turned over with precise cadence and during which the characteristic brand is affixed: the three "T"s and a number that allows to trace the production dairy. Salting follows, dry or in brine, which allows the formation of the crust and gives flavour, and then the seasoning (35-40 days), during which molds and yeasts form which give the external surface the characteristic yellowish-pink colour, with gray and sage green streaks. The color of the paste ranges from white to straw yellow. Sweet on the palate, aromatic and persistent, it becomes more savoury and almost spicy in the more seasoned wheels.

Castelmagno

Known since the 13th century, it owes its name to the small municipality in the Cuneo area located between the Maritime Alps and the Cottian Alps and which is one of the only three Piedmontese municipalities (besides Pradleves and Monterosso Grana) where it is produced. It is a pressed raw and blueveined cheese, obtained from raw cow's milk (product of two consecutive milkings, in the evening and in the morning) to which sheep's and/or goat's milk can be added. The term "erborinatura" refers to the Lombard dialect "erborin", a word used to indicate parsley: the veins of the more seasoned forms of Castelmagno, in fact, due to the development of special molds belonging to the genus pennicillium, are slightly greenish in colour. The processing requires the curd to be broken twice after two days: minced, salted with coarse salt, placed in molds and pressed. The forms are aged for at least two months. Wooden planks house the aligned shapes, at a temperature between 5° and 15°C (40 – 60 °F) and humidity between 70% and 98%: in this way, the natural molds mottle the Castelmagno left to age for a long time. The result is a cylinder with a diameter ranging from 15 to 25 cm (6”-10”): under a thin crust between the brownish yellow of the younger wheels and the ocher of the more mature ones, there is a crumbly paste that becomes more compact as you keep ripening – without holes, ivory white, bright yellow to deep ocher with blue streaks. The flavour is fine and refined: herbaceous and delicate in the younger forms, it becomes almost spicy and markedly sapid in the older ones.

Asiago

Its history dates back to the early Middle Ages, when sheep's milk (precisely of “pegorin”, precious for their wool) cheese was produced in the area enclosed by the Astico and Brenta rivers. The turning point came around 1500, when sheep breeding was progressively replaced by cattle, following the improvement of the areas destined for grazing and the modernisation of the breeding techniques themselves. The merit of such a revolution seems to be attributed to the Cimbri, an ancient population of Germanic origin who migrated to the Altopiano dei Sette Comuni, who introduced cows into the Asiago area. Their influence, combined with the expertise of the monks in dairy farming, soon transformed the plateau into an area of excellence in the production of the cheese of the same name, which is now produced in dairies and mountain huts. The production area covers a part of the province of Padua and Treviso and borders on the whole of Trento.

A semi-cooked cheese, it is produced in two distinct types: the fresh one

(or pressed, because the wheels are pressed with manual or hydraulic presses) and the more seasoned (or d’allevo) one. The fresh version has the softness of sponge cake and a nice elasticity, the scent is that of yogurt and butter and the flavour is delicate and sweet. Addition of rennet to the milk, semi-cooking, breaking of the curd, cutting of the paste, portioning, pressing, placing in molds and branding on the edge of the wheel represent the main phases of the processing, which ends with salting and aging, which ranges from 20 to 40 days. The character of Asiago d'Allevo is more decisive: rennet is added to the milk; once coagulated, the curd is cut with a stick, until granules the size of a hazelnut are obtained. This is followed by cooking, molding, placing in aging molds, branding, cooling and salting. The aging is the phase that forms its character: the varieties are mezzano, aged for 4 to 6 months and still sweet in taste; old, aged for 10-15 months, more decisive and slightly spicy, extra-aged, aged over 15 months, decidedly more intense and spicy.

Fontina

The origins of the Aosta Valley cheese par excellence are complicated to trace. The first certain date to which the name can be traced back is 1717, the first classification is from 1887 with "Le Fontine di Val d'Aosta" while the second is in the 1930s-1940s by the Ministry of Agriculture. Even the etymology is confused: some associate it with the Fontin pasture, others associate it with the village of Fontinaz or with the surname of a family. Finally, others, to further complicate things, make it derive from the ancient French term "fontis" or "fondis", to indicate the particular ability of the pasta to melt with heat. Produced under the PDO label since 1995, Fontina is one of the best raw milk cheeses in Italy. It is produced from the milk of the Pezzata Rossa and Pezzata Nera Valdostana cows (the mountain pastures are located at a maximum altitude of 2500m / 11,500 ft), which must be processed within two hours of milking. Unskimmed and raw, the milk is coagulated in copper or steel boilers and with the addition of calf rennet. The breaking of the curd must allow to obtain granules the size of a grain of corn, which are then purged.

The mass is extracted and bundled into cloths, which are piled up and placed under the press. Pressing and turning precede the phase of immersion in brine, in tanks containing a solution of water and salt. The aging phase is the most important, during which the cheese acquires the typical melting consistency, the unmistakable aroma and the sweet taste: it lasts an average of 4-5 months. In the first three, the wheels are turned daily, alternating a day of salting and a day of scrubbing the surface with brushes moistened with salt water. At the end of the aging period - generally at least 90 days, in damp rooms or caves - the rind will have acquired the recognizable brown color and the paste will have its typical character: soft, firm and elastic, with fine and irregular holes, more intense straw yellow in cheeses produced in summer. On the palate, the unmistakable trait is sweetness.

Robiola

We close our journey through the cheeses of the North with Robiola, which has very ancient origins, dating back even to the Celtic-Ligurian period. It owes its name to the Latin "rubere", which means to redden: this cheese, called "Rubeola", in fact became more and more reddish as the aging proceeded. It is prepared with sheep’s, cow’s or goat’s milk, depending on the production areas, which are concentrated in northern Italy. However, it is Piedmont that dominates, with the territories of Alba, Monferrato, Introbio, Valsassina and Roccaverano, where Robiola PDO is produced. A typical trait of robiola is the consistency of the paste: soft, almost buttery inside. The aging varies from a minimum of a few days up to a couple of weeks and, depend- ing on the degree of maturation, the taste of the cheese also changes, which is delicate in the fresh product, with acidic notes, to then become more decisive and balanced. Robiola di Roccaverano is produced exclusively with sheep, goat and cow milk. After natural acidification has taken place, rennet of animal origin is added to the milk and then left to rest for coagulation. The curd is then transferred into perforated molds with bottoms and turned periodically. Salting is carried out dry on both sides of the product during turning or at the end of the forming process. Natural aging takes place by keeping the fresh product in special rooms for at least three days: Robiola di Roccaverano is considered mature from the tenth day after placing it in the molds.