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Cheese from Italy, Lazio

Cacio fioreCaciofiore della campagna romana

A soft, square ewe-milk cheese set with a coagulant soaked from dried thistle or artichoke flowers, the method Columella describes. Raw whole milk is set at 38 °C in about an hour, broken twice to chickpea size and drained a day in square baskets without pressing. It is salted dry for 12 hours and ripened 40–60 days at 7–10 °C.

Fully documentedCheese43 days – 2.1 monthsPAT (traditional agri-food product of Lazio); Slow Food Presidium (Caciofiore della campagna romana)Family: Uncooked or semi-cooked pressed cheese family (tomme, Saint-Nectaire, Reblochon, Morbier, Raclette)

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceThe coagulant amounts are per 100 kg (one quintal) of milk. No starter or additives are used. Blocks weigh 0.4–1 kg.
Raw whole ewe milkTwo to four milkings, chilled; sometimes only the evening milk is chilled[pat-sheet]
Dried thistle or artichoke stamens (Cynara cardunculus or C. scolymus)60–80 g per 100 kg of milkSoaked 24 hours in 800 ml of water, filtered and poured into the milk in a thin stream[onaf-sheet]
SaltRubbed on dry[pat-sheet]
Starternone (no additives or lactic cultures)

Total time across the recorded steps: 43 days – 2.1 months

Start
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What changes: Starting material: raw ewe milk, filtered through cloth

Step 1 of 7
Filter the raw milk
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactococcus lactis

Filtered through cloth; not heat-treated. Output: raw whole ewe milk.

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 soft, square ewe-milk cheese set with a coagulant soaked from dried thistle or artichoke flowers, the method Columella describes. Raw whole milk is set at 38 °C in about an hour, broken twice to chickpea size and drained a day in square baskets without pressing. It is salted dry for 12 hours and ripened 40–60 days at 7–10 °C. Made in 7 steps over 43 days – 2.1 months. The longest step, ripen in a cool, humid cell, takes 40 days – 2 months (ARSIAL (Regione Lazio) 2018) and runs at 7–10 °C (ARSIAL (Regione Lazio) 2018). Lactococcus lactis dominated the bacteria during fermentation and maturation of Caciofiore made with thistle coagulant at a family dairy in the Marche region does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step40 days – 2 monthsReported[pat-sheet]Ripen in a cool, humid cell
Temperature7–10 °CReported[pat-sheet]Ripen in a cool, humid cell

What makes this one different

It is set with a thistle-flower coagulant instead of animal rennet, a method taken from Columella's first-century farming manual, and it is drained without pressing into soft square blocks.

Season
Made from November to June; in summer the flocks move to the Abruzzo mountains (ONAF sheet)
Size
0.4–1 kg; square block with sides of 10–15 cm and a convex side of about 5 cm

Related ferments

Safety

Made from raw milk and ripened 40–60 days. ANSES advises pregnant women, people over 65, young children and people with weak immunity not to eat raw-milk cheese. Ripening may not remove the risk. The US FDA says even 60 days may not eliminate or adequately reduce E. coli O157:H7 and Salmonella in raw-milk cheese, and Listeria may grow in some cheeses during ageing.

Hazards the sources name: Escherichia coli, found in the raw milk and counted in Caciofiore made at a Marche family dairy, at levels that differed between two production rounds (a related cheese; Rampanti 2023).

History and sources

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

Columella, writing about 50 AD in De Re Rustica, says milk can be curdled with wild thistle flowers as well as with lamb or kid rennet. Dairies around Rome revived the cheese from that text, and Slow Food supports producers who use cultivated thistle.

  1. [pat-sheet] ARSIAL (Regione Lazio), Prodotti tradizionali, Scheda analitica del prodotto id 65, Cacio fiore (printed 22/5/2018)gov
  2. [onaf-sheet] ONAF, Cacio fiore, technical sheet (PAT Lazio)web
  3. [rampanti2023] Rampanti G., Belleggia L., Cardinali F., Milanovic V., Osimani A., Garofalo C., Ferrocino I., Aquilanti L. 2023, Microbial Dynamics of a Specialty Italian Raw Ewe's Milk Cheese Curdled with Extracts from Spontaneous and Cultivated Onopordum tauricum Willd., Microorganisms 11(1):219 (Caciofiore from a Marche family dairy, not this cheese)paper
  4. [anses2022] ANSES 2022, Fromages au lait cru, quels risques pour la santé et comment mieux les prévenir (8 April 2022)gov
  5. [fda-rawcheese2016] US Food and Drug Administration 2016, FY 2014–2016 Microbiological Sampling Assignment Summary Report, Raw Milk Cheese Aged 60 Daysgov