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Cheese from Italy, Lombardia

Fatulì

Fresh raw milk of the Bionda dell'Adamello goat is set with rennet at 28–30 °C, broken to pea or rice size and semi-cooked at 40 °C. The small cheeses drain in hoops, are salted, dried and then smoked over juniper or other local wood on grills that leave grooves on the rind. They ripen 1–3 months, longer for grating.

Fully documentedCheese42 days – 3.4 monthsTraditional food product (PAT, Lombardia); Slow Food Presidio (2007)Family: Hard pressed ewe cheese family (Manchego and Pecorino Romano as templates)

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedThe sheets give temperatures and times but no batch size or doses. A cheese weighs about 400–500 g.
Whole fresh milk of Bionda dell'Adamello goatsFrom one milking, usually not heated before the rennet goes in[lombardia-pat]
RennetONAF names liquid calf or kid rennet[lombardia-pat][onaf-sheet]
SaltDry salting is more common than brine[lombardia-pat]
Lactic cultures (optional)[onaf-sheet]
Green juniper branchesFor the smoke; today hazel or beech branches are often used, as juniper may not be cut freely[lombardia-pat][onaf-sheet]
Starterlactic cultures are sometimes added to the milk before the rennet

Total time across the recorded steps: 42 days – 3.4 months

Start
Drag the bar or press Play
28–30 °C

What changes: Rennet sets the fresh goat milk at 28–30 °C

Step 1 of 7
Set the fresh milk
Time
40 min
Reported
Temperature
28–30 °C
Reported
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented

Output: curd.

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

Fresh raw milk of the Bionda dell'Adamello goat is set with rennet at 28–30 °C, broken to pea or rice size and semi-cooked at 40 °C. The small cheeses drain in hoops, are salted, dried and then smoked over juniper or other local wood on grills that leave grooves on the rind. They ripen 1–3 months, longer for grating. Made in 7 steps over 42 days – 3.4 months. The longest step, ripen, takes 30 days – 3 months (Regione Lombardia 2008).

Key numbers
Main step30 days – 3 monthsReported[lombardia-pat]Ripen
Temperature28–30 °CReported[lombardia-pat][onaf-sheet]Set the fresh milk

What makes this one different

A small goat cheese smoked over juniper, made only from the rare Bionda dell'Adamello goat. The smoke once let it keep for a long time, and the grill leaves grooves on its rind.

Rind
Yellow to brown from the smoke, with grooves left by the grill
Size
The Lombardy sheet gives 20–25 cm across, 3–5 cm high and about 400–500 g; the Slow Food Presidio gives 10–14 cm across, 4–6 cm high and 0.3–0.5 kg
Season
Made June to September, while the goats graze wild plants

Related ferments

Safety

Made from raw goat milk. ONAF gives 20–30 days of ripening for the soft cheese and 45–180 days for the usual hard one. The US FDA says ageing raw-milk cheese for 60 days may not remove E. coli O157:H7 and Salmonella, and Listeria can grow in some cheeses during ageing.

History and sources

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

Smoking let the cheese keep for a long time, and juniper was probably used because it was one of the few woody plants near the Val Saviore summer huts. Slow Food made it a Presidio in 2007, backed by the Adamello Park, to save the cheese and the Bionda goat.

Microbes
No study we found names its microbes.
  1. [lombardia-pat] Regione Lombardia, Schede prodotti agroalimentari tradizionali, Annex B to DDUO no. 3392 of 7/4/2008, 'Fatulí'gov
  2. [onaf-sheet] ONAF (national organisation of cheese tasters), technical sheet 'Fatulì' (process data from ERSAF Lombardia and the Slow Food Presidio)web
  3. [onaf] ONAF, cheese page 'Fatulì' (id 984)web
  4. [fda-rawcheese2016] US Food and Drug Administration 2016, FY 2014–2016 Microbiological Sampling Assignment Summary Report, Raw Milk Cheese Aged 60 Daysgov