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Cheese from Italy, Trentino

CasolètCasolét

A small, soft mountain cheese from the Val di Sole and its side valleys. Whole cow milk is set with calf rennet at 35–39 °C, the curd is broken to walnut size and packed into moulds without pressing, then brined the next day. It is ready after 20–30 days, with a tender, pale paste.

Fully documentedCheese20 days – 30 daysSlow Food Presidium (raw-milk Casolét); listed in the Trentino agri-food atlasFamily: Uncooked or semi-cooked pressed cheese family (tomme, Saint-Nectaire, Reblochon, Morbier, Raclette)

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedTraditional method with no fixed batch size. In the past each family made cheese from whatever milk it had that day, so the size of the cheese varied.
Whole cow milk from one or two milkingsRaw for the Presidium cheese; thermised in other dairies[slowfood-casolet][onaf-casolet]
Calf rennet[onaf-casolet]
Salt (brine, or dry salt)[slowfood-casolet][onaf-casolet]
Starterin the raw-milk Presidium cheese only rennet is added to the milk; thermised milk gets a natural milk starter or selected cultures

Total time across the recorded steps: 20 days – 30 days

Start
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What changes: Starting material: whole cow milk from one or two milkings

Step 1 of 6
Collect the whole milk
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented

Collected warm in churns or chilled at the farm. Output: whole cow milk from one or two milkings.

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 small, soft mountain cheese from the Val di Sole and its side valleys. Whole cow milk is set with calf rennet at 35–39 °C, the curd is broken to walnut size and packed into moulds without pressing, then brined the next day. It is ready after 20–30 days, with a tender, pale paste. Made in 6 steps over 20 days – 30 days. The longest step, ripen, takes 20–30 days (Provincia autonoma di Trento 2012) and runs at 4–6 °C (ONAF (national organisation of cheese tasters)).

Key numbers
Main step20–30 daysReported[tn-atlante][slowfood-casolet]Ripen
Temperature4–6 °CReported[onaf-casolet]Ripen

What makes this one different

A small, young, uncooked cow cheese of the Val di Sole, eaten after 20–30 days. The curd is packed into moulds without pressing, so the paste stays soft and tender.

Milk
Whole cow milk from one or two milkings; raw in the Presidium cheese, thermised elsewhere
Ripening
20–30 days; in the past it was also kept 3–4 months
Size
Cylinder 10–12 cm across (Trentino atlas; the ONAF sheet says 10–22 cm) and 7–12 cm high, 1–3 kg; the most traditional have 10 cm faces, are about 10 cm high and weigh about 1 kg (ONAF)

Related ferments

Variants

  • Thermised CasolètMilk heated to 60–65 °C, cooled to 40 °C and given a natural milk starter or selected cultures; rennet sets it in 5–10 minutes; brined about 6 hours.
  • Casolét PresidiumRaw milk only, ripened at least 20 days.

Safety

The Presidium cheese is made from raw milk and ripened at least 20 days. Other dairies thermise the milk first. Where the milk is raw, 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

The name probably comes from Latin caseolus, small cheese. It was once made only in autumn, when the herds came down from the summer pastures and milk was scarce, and was kept as the family's winter cheese. It was made at home, in dairies that took turns working the village milk, and later in valley cooperatives. The Slow Food Presidium brings back the raw-milk cheese.

  1. [tn-atlante] Provincia autonoma di Trento, Servizio Agricoltura 2012, Atlante dei prodotti agroalimentari del Trentino, 'Casolèt', p. 72gov
  2. [onaf-casolet] ONAF (national organisation of cheese tasters), technical sheet 'Casolét' (standard and Presidium methods)web
  3. [slowfood-casolet] Fondazione Slow Food, Presidium 'Casolét a latte crudo delle valli di Sole, Rabbi e Pejo'web
  4. [franciosi-milk] Franciosi E., Schiavon S., Poznanski E., Cavazza A., Biodiversità batterica in latti destinati alla produzione di formaggi nostrani trentini, Istituto Agrario di San Michele all'Adige (Fondazione Edmund Mach)paper
  5. [anses2022] ANSES 2022, Fromages au lait cru, quels risques pour la santé et comment mieux les prévenir (8 April 2022)gov