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Cheese from Italy, Sicilia

Formaggio di capra sicilianoFurmaggiu ri capra

Raw whole goat milk is set in a wooden tub with kid or lamb rennet paste, broken to lentil-size grains and pressed by hand into rush baskets. The baskets are scalded in hot whey for about 4 hours, the cheeses dry for a day and are dry-salted once or twice, 10 days apart. They are eaten fresh after a few days or ripened for more than 4 months.

Fully documentedCheese23 daysTraditional food product (PAT, Regione Siciliana)Family: Hard pressed ewe cheese family (Manchego and Pecorino Romano as templates)

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedFarm-made in a wooden tub; the sheets give no batch size or doses. A cheese weighs about 3 kg.
Raw whole goat milkFrom free-range or semi-free goats of various breeds, on pasture[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]
Kid and/or lamb rennet paste[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]
SaltRubbed dry over the whole cheese[pat-sheet]
Black peppercorns or chilli flakesoptionalAdded to the curd in the baskets when the buyer asks for it[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]
StarterThe milk's own natural microflora; the ONAF sheet says the curd forms thanks to it.

Total time across the recorded steps: 23 days

Start
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34–35 °C

What changes: Kid or lamb rennet paste goes into the warm goat milk in a wooden tub

Step 1 of 7
Warm the milk and set it with rennet paste
Time
45 min
Reported
Temperature
34–35 °C
Reported
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented

The filtered milk is warmed in a copper or steel cauldron and poured into the wooden tub. The curd then rests 5–30 minutes.

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 whole goat milk is set in a wooden tub with kid or lamb rennet paste, broken to lentil-size grains and pressed by hand into rush baskets. The baskets are scalded in hot whey for about 4 hours, the cheeses dry for a day and are dry-salted once or twice, 10 days apart. They are eaten fresh after a few days or ripened for more than 4 months. Made in 7 steps over 23 days. The longest step, dry-salt twice, 10 days apart, takes 20 days (Regione Siciliana 2018) and runs at 12–18 °C (ONAF (Organizzazione Nazionale Assaggiatori F…).

Key numbers
Main step20 daysReported[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]Dry-salt twice, 10 days apart
Temperature12–18 °CReported[onaf-sheet]Dry-salt twice, 10 days apart

What makes this one different

Sicily's basket goat cheese is scalded for hours in hot ricotta whey and dry-salted by hand in stages; its name changes with the salting, from unsalted tuma fresca to primosale, secondosale and stagionato. It is a 3 kg cylinder, unlike the small ball-shaped padduni.

Rind
None (fresh) or rough with basket marks, white-yellowish to light ochre, oiled
Size
Cylinder 15–25 cm across and 10–15 cm high, about 3 kg
Season
Made from February to October

Related ferments

Variants

  • Tuma frescaFresh curd, not salted, sold at once.
  • PrimosaleAbout 8–10 days old, salted once.
  • SecondosaleAbout 2–3 months old, salted twice.
  • StagionatoRipened more than 3–4 months.
  • AromatizzatoWith black peppercorns or chilli flakes in the paste.

Safety

Made from raw milk and eaten after 2–3 days to over 4 months of ripening (the unsalted fresh curd is called tuma fresca). ANSES names Listeria, Salmonella and enterohaemorrhagic E. coli as the main hazards of raw-milk cheeses. It advises pregnant women, young children, people over 65 and people with weak immunity not to eat raw-milk cheeses other than cooked pressed ones such as Gruyère or Comté.

History and sources

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

The regional sheet says its origins go back to the 11th century BC, when Homer speaks of a drink made from grated goat cheese. It says Aristotle, in the 4th century BC, praised the taste of goat milk mixed with cow or sheep milk in Sicilian dairying, and Varro, in the 2nd century BC, stressed the nutritive qualities of goat milk and goat cheeses. It points to Carmelo Campisi's 1933 book, Pecore e pecorino della Sicilia, for the production method.

Microbes
No study we found names its microbes.
  1. [pat-sheet] Regione Siciliana, Prodotti agroalimentari tradizionali (2018, DM 16 February 2018), sheet 'Formaggio di capra siciliano' (copy hosted by ONAF)gov
  2. [onaf-sheet] ONAF (Organizzazione Nazionale Assaggiatori Formaggi), technical sheet 'Formaggio di capra siciliano'web
  3. [onaf] ONAF, cheese page 'Formaggio di capra siciliano' (id 1230)web
  4. [anses2022] ANSES 2022, Fromages au lait cru, quels risques pour la santé et comment mieux les prévenir (8 April 2022)gov