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Cheese from Italy, Marche

Formaggio in fossa (stagionato in fossa)

Semi-aged sheep, cow or mixed cheeses, first ripened 60–90 days in cool airy rooms, are packed in cotton sacks into straw-lined pits cut in the rock and sealed airtight. After about three months (80–100 days) the forms come out squashed and greasy, with the rind digested into the paste. It is an ageing method applied to cheeses made elsewhere, not a cheese recipe of its own.

Fully documentedCheese4.9 months – 6.6 monthsPAT (Regione Marche; also listed for Emilia-Romagna and Toscana)Family: Formaggio di fossa (pit-ripened)

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedEach sack holds 8–10 forms marked with weight, date and owner; a pit is filled to the top with sacks. A finished form weighs 0.5–2.0 kg.
Semi-aged cheeses from local dairies, made from sheep, cow or mixed milk (cow 80% at most)[onaf-sheet][fossa-oj-2009]
Wheat strawBurnt to sanitise the pit, then used to line its walls[onaf-sheet][fossa-oj-2009]
Cotton sacks, canes, untreated wooden boards, gypsum or sandstone lime mortarPit fittings and seal; not eaten[onaf-sheet][fossa-oj-2009]
Starterthe sheet says an old pit develops its own bacterial load that re-ferments the cheese

Total time across the recorded steps: 4.9 months – 6.6 months

Start
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2–3 months

What changes: The base cheese ripens two to three months in cool airy rooms

Step 1 of 5
Make and age the base cheese
Time
2–3 months
Reported
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented

The base cheeses are usually semi-cooked, set with lamb rennet paste (sheep) or calf rennet (cow, mixed), from milk with no more than 80% cow milk.

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

Semi-aged sheep, cow or mixed cheeses, first ripened 60–90 days in cool airy rooms, are packed in cotton sacks into straw-lined pits cut in the rock and sealed airtight. After about three months (80–100 days) the forms come out squashed and greasy, with the rind digested into the paste. It is an ageing method applied to cheeses made elsewhere, not a cheese recipe of its own. Made in 5 steps over 4.9 months – 6.6 months. The longest step, ripen sealed in the pit, takes 2.6–3.3 months (European Commission 2009). Microbes of the pit and the cheese that drive an anaerobic re-fermentation does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step2.6–3.3 monthsSet[fossa-oj-2009][onaf-sheet]Ripen sealed in the pit

What makes this one different

The Montefeltro PAT version of pit ageing, covering sheep, cow and mixed cheeses from Marche, Romagna and Tuscany. It follows the same pit rules as the Sogliano PDO without its protected area and name.

Rind
Absent or barely a skin; greasy surface, sometimes with condensed fat and moulds
Size
Very irregular and deformed, 0.5–2.0 kg
Types
Sheep (ovino), cow (vaccino) or mixed (misto), labelled by milk

Related ferments

Safety

The pit is sanitised with fire before filling and sealed for 80–100 days. Moulds and fat on the surface are scraped off before eating.

History and sources

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

Malatesta records from 1350 describe pits used to store grain and age cheese; Pantaleone da Confienza described cheese buried in pits in his Summa Lacticiniorum of 1477. Today pits are used or rented for gastronomic reasons rather than need.

Temperature, salt and pH
The sources we found give no temperature, salt or pH figure for any of its steps.
  1. [onaf-sheet] ONAF (national organisation of cheese tasters), technical sheet 'Formaggio in fossa' (PAT Marche, Emilia-Romagna, Toscana)web
  2. [fossa-oj-2009] European Commission 2009, Publication of an application, single document «Formaggio di Fossa di Sogliano» (IT-PDO-0005-0580), Official Journal of the EU C 108/15, 12 May 2009 (Italian; copy hosted by ONAF); the sister PDO with the same pit rulesspec
  3. [onaf] ONAF, cheese page 'Formaggio in fossa' (id 1209)web