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Cheese from Italy, Calabria

Felciata'A filicéta

A boundary entry, set by rennet and eaten the same day rather than ripened. Raw goat milk with a little sheep milk is strained through ferns and set at 34 °C with kid or lamb paste rennet in 30–45 minutes. The uncut curd is ladled into wooden buckets in layers with fern sprigs, drained just enough to firm and sold at once.

Fully documentedCheese30 min – 45 minTraditional food product (PAT, Regione Calabria, product code F-07)Family: Uncooked or semi-cooked pressed cheese family (tomme, Saint-Nectaire, Reblochon, Morbier, Raclette)

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedNo doses are given. ONAF gives up to 20% sheep milk; a cheese weighs about 250 g (PAT sheet) or 0.2–0.4 kg (ONAF).
Raw whole goat milk, sometimes with a little sheep milk[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]
Kid or lamb paste rennet[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]
Fern sprigs, from the top of the plant[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]
SaltListed on the PAT sheet; ONAF says the cheese is not salted[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]

Total time across the recorded steps: 30 min – 45 min

Start
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What changes: Raw goat milk is strained through fern fronds

Step 1 of 4
Strain the milk through ferns
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented

Fresh raw milk is filtered through fern fronds into a pot.

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 boundary entry, set by rennet and eaten the same day rather than ripened. Raw goat milk with a little sheep milk is strained through ferns and set at 34 °C with kid or lamb paste rennet in 30–45 minutes. The uncut curd is ladled into wooden buckets in layers with fern sprigs, drained just enough to firm and sold at once. Made in 4 steps over 30 min – 45 min. The longest step, set with kid or lamb rennet, takes 30–45 min (ONAF (national organisation of cheese tasters)) and runs at 34 °C (Regione Calabria).

Key numbers
Main step30–45 minReported[onaf-sheet]Set with kid or lamb rennet
Temperature34 °CReported[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]Set with kid or lamb rennet

What makes this one different

It is never cut, salted (per ONAF) or ripened; the curd is layered with fern sprigs in wooden buckets, which perfume it.

Rind
None; porcelain-white, creamy, moist
Size
Takes the shape of its container
Season
May to September (PAT sheet); May to August (ONAF)

Related ferments

Safety

This raw goat and sheep milk cheese is eaten the day it is made, with no ripening. The regional sheet requested hygiene derogations for raw milk, wooden buckets and ferns. It names raw-milk risks such as Staphylococcus aureus and advises checking the milk and good hygiene, or thermising or pasteurising it. WHO says most brucellosis cases come from unpasteurised milk or cheese from infected goats or sheep. ANSES names Listeria, Salmonella and enterohaemorrhagic E. coli as the main raw-milk cheese hazards. 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. The sources do not name the fern. Bracken and some other ferns contain ptaquiloside, a carcinogen, and no study we read measured what passes from the fern into this cheese.

Hazards the sources name: Staphylococcus aureus, high total bacterial counts and somatic cells from raw milk, named as risks in the regional notes reproduced by ONAF.

History and sources

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

The regional sheet says the recipe was probably passed down in families or, more commonly, from one caporale (head of a group of farm workers) to the next. It adds that an old Calabrian text reports the cheese was often called "pane degli angeli".

Starter
The sources we found do not say how its fermentation begins.
  1. [pat-sheet] Regione Calabria, Prodotti agro-alimentari tradizionali, sheet 'Felciata', product code F-07 (scanned, no text layer; copy hosted by ONAF)gov
  2. [onaf-sheet] ONAF (national organisation of cheese tasters), technical sheet 'Felciata'web
  3. [onaf] ONAF, cheese page 'Felciata' (id 1116)web
  4. [anses2022] ANSES 2022, Fromages au lait cru, quels risques pour la santé et comment mieux les prévenir (8 April 2022)gov
  5. [who-brucellosis] World Health Organization, Brucellosis fact sheetgov
  6. [vetter2022] Vetter J. 2022, The Norsesquiterpene Glycoside Ptaquiloside as a Poisonous, Carcinogenic Component of Certain Ferns, Molecules 27(19):6662, doi:10.3390/molecules27196662paper