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Cheese from Italy, Calabria

ButirroBurrino

A pear of stretched cow-milk curd wrapped around a core of butter, made in Calabria as a way to keep butter. Raw milk is set with calf or kid rennet at 36–38 °C, the curd sours for 4–10 hours, and it is stretched in hot water and closed around a chilled ball of washed butter under a three-pointed knot. It ripens about 7 days in a cool room.

Fully documentedCheese7.7 days – 2 monthsPAT (traditional agri-food product of Calabria); historic dairy product under Calabria regional law 5/2004Family: Pasta filata (stretched-curd) cheese family

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedNo amounts are recorded. Each butirro weighs 200–300 g.
Raw whole cow milkPodolica or Podolica crosses, now also dairy breeds[lr-calabria]
Calf or kid rennet[onaf-sheet]
ButterCan be made from the whey of other pasta filata cheeses; washed several times to remove acidity[lr-calabria][onaf-sheet]
Hot waterFor stretching the curd[onaf-sheet]
Starternatural microflora

Total time across the recorded steps: 7.7 days – 2 months

Start
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36–38 °CMilk proteinGel (curd)

What changes: Calf or kid rennet sets the raw milk into a curd at 36–38 °C

Step 1 of 6
Set with rennet
Time
Not documented
Temperature
36–38 °C
Reported
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactic acid bacteria
Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

A pear of stretched cow-milk curd wrapped around a core of butter, made in Calabria as a way to keep butter. Raw milk is set with calf or kid rennet at 36–38 °C, the curd sours for 4–10 hours, and it is stretched in hot water and closed around a chilled ball of washed butter under a three-pointed knot. It ripens about 7 days in a cool room. Made in 6 steps over 7.7 days – 2 months. The longest step, ripen in a cool room, takes 7 days – 2 months (Regione Calabria 2004).

Key numbers
Main step7 days – 2 monthsReported[lr-calabria][onaf-sheet]Ripen in a cool room
Temperature36–38 °CReported[onaf-sheet]Set with rennet

What makes this one different

The stretched curd is only a casing. Inside is a ball of washed butter, which the casing helped keep and carry for a long time; the name comes from the dialect word for butter.

Size
200–300 g; pear shape (the law gives about 15 cm high and 8–10 cm across; ONAF gives 4–5 cm across and 10–25 cm long)
Boundary
The core is butter, which is not fermented

Related ferments

Safety

It is made from raw milk and eaten after about a week. The Calabria PAT notes name total bacterial count, somatic cells and Staphylococcus aureus as the raw-milk risks, controlled by checking the milk or by thermising or pasteurising it. ANSES advises pregnant women, young children, people over 65 and people with weak immunity not to eat raw-milk cheeses other than hard cooked ones, because of Listeria, Salmonella and enterohaemorrhagic E. coli.

Hazards the sources name: Staphylococcus aureus, named in the Calabria PAT safety notes as a risk of raw milk.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

Calabria's 2004 law on historic dairy products says the butirro was born of the old herders' need to keep and carry butter for a long time, using the provola casing. Place names such as Sila, Pollino or Sibari may follow the name. The Slow Food Ark of Taste describes a similar double-structure cheese as manteca, also called burrino or butirro, tied to Podolica caciocavallo making from March to August; it gives the butter as made from the previous day's ricotta.

  1. [lr-calabria] Regione Calabria, Legge regionale 23 febbraio 2004 n. 5, Norme per l'individuazione dei prodotti a base di latte storicamente riconosciuti o tradizionalmente fabbricati, Allegato III Butirro (BURC n. 3, 2004), FAOLEX copygov
  2. [onaf-sheet] ONAF, Butirro, technical sheet with the Regione Calabria PAT notesweb
  3. [slowfood-manteca] Fondazione Slow Food, Arca del Gusto, 'Manteca di Vacca Podolica' (a cheese it says is also called burrino or butirro)web
  4. [anses2022] ANSES 2022, Fromages au lait cru, quels risques pour la santé et comment mieux les prévenir (8 April 2022)gov