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Cheese from Italy, Calabria

Caprino dell'Aspromonte

Raw goat milk from the evening and morning milkings is warmed over a wood fire to 27–34 °C and set with kid rennet paste the herders make themselves. The curd is broken to rice size, pressed into rush baskets, weighted and dry-salted twice. Most is eaten after 20–30 days; a little is aged 4–5 months for grating.

Fully documentedCheese21 days – 5 monthsTraditional food product (PAT, Calabria)Family: Hard pressed ewe cheese family (Manchego and Pecorino Romano as templates)

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedHerders' method with no fixed batch size or rennet dose. Each cheese weighs 1–1.5 kg.
Raw whole goat milk from the evening and morning milkingsFrom a local mixed goat population grazing only on pasture; kept at room temperature or hung outside the fold overnight[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]
Kid rennet paste, made by the herders, diluted in warm water[pat-sheet]
Fine salt, for dry-salting[pat-sheet]
Starternone added

Total time across the recorded steps: 21 days – 5 months

Start
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27–34 °C

What changes: Evening and morning goat milk is filtered into the kettle and warmed over a fire

Step 1 of 6
Mix, filter and warm the milk
Time
Not documented
Temperature
27–34 °C
Reported
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented

The evening milk is mixed with the morning milk and filtered through a fine sieve into the kettle.

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

Raw goat milk from the evening and morning milkings is warmed over a wood fire to 27–34 °C and set with kid rennet paste the herders make themselves. The curd is broken to rice size, pressed into rush baskets, weighted and dry-salted twice. Most is eaten after 20–30 days; a little is aged 4–5 months for grating. Made in 6 steps over 21 days – 5 months. The longest step, ripen on cane or wood shelves, takes 20 days – 5 months (Regione Calabria).

Key numbers
Main step20 days – 5 monthsReported[pat-sheet]Ripen on cane or wood shelves
Temperature27–34 °CReported[pat-sheet]Mix, filter and warm the milk

What makes this one different

A herders' raw goat cheese pressed in rush baskets, set with home-made kid rennet paste and made only from January to June. Most is eaten at about a month; little is aged for grating.

Size
Cylinder about 20 cm across and 7 cm high, 1–1.5 kg
Season
January, after the kids are sold, to the end of June, when the goats dry off

Related ferments

Variants

  • Table cheese20–30 days; white, soft, sweet and slightly sour.
  • Grating cheese4–5 months; straw-yellow, hard and piquant.

Safety

Made from raw milk with wooden tools, rush baskets and a wood fire. The regional note asks for a hygiene exemption for these methods and says raw milk can cause problems with total bacterial count, somatic cells and Staphylococcus aureus. Young cheeses are eaten after 20–30 days. ANSES, the French food safety agency, names Listeria, Salmonella and enterohaemorrhagic E. coli as the main hazards of raw-milk cheeses. It advises pregnant women, people over 65, people with weak immunity and young children not to eat raw-milk cheeses, except cooked pressed ones such as Comté.

History and sources

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

Most of the herds are on the Ionian side of the Aspromonte in Reggio Calabria province. The goats are a mixed local population kept extensively on pasture rich in legumes and grasses of the Mediterranean scrub. Slow Food describes the wider group of Caprini d'Aspromonte, which it has made a Presidium, as made by an archaic tradition passed on orally, with the milk of local goats later identified as the Aspromontana breed. For that group it gives forms of 800 g to 2 kg, and says the largest, 3 kg and more, can age for a year; the regional sheet for this cheese gives 1–1.5 kg and 4–5 months.

  1. [pat-sheet] Regione Calabria, Prodotti agro-alimentari tradizionali, product sheet no. 60 'Caprino dell'Aspromonte' (scanned form, copy hosted by ONAF)gov
  2. [onaf-sheet] ONAF (national organisation of cheese tasters), technical sheet 'Caprino dell'Aspromonte'web
  3. [slowfood-caprini] Fondazione Slow Food per la Biodiversità, Presidio 'Caprini d'Aspromonte' (Calabria, dairy and cheeses)web
  4. [anses2022] ANSES 2022, Fromages au lait cru, quels risques pour la santé et comment mieux les prévenir (8 April 2022)gov