Skip to main content
Support

Browse by category

All categories
Home

Cheese from Italy, Friuli Venezia Giulia

Formai del cìtformai del cìt

Formai del cìt is a strong, slightly spicy cheese spread made at home from leftover or faulty Latteria or Montasio cheese. The cheese is minced, kneaded by hand with milk or cream, left for 6–7 hours at room temperature, minced again and seasoned. It is a cheese preparation, not a new make; the flavour comes from the aged cheese and grows sharper as it is kept.

Fully documentedCheese6 h – 7 hTraditional food product (PAT, Friuli Venezia Giulia)Family: Uncooked or semi-cooked pressed cheese family (tomme, Saint-Nectaire, Reblochon, Morbier, Raclette)

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedHousehold preparation with no fixed amounts; the sources give only the ingredients and the resting time.
Latteria or Montasio cheese, aged 2–12 monthsLeftovers or wheels with minor faults; grated if very old[ersa][onaf-sheet]
MilkTo make the paste smooth; cream was often used instead in the past[ersa][onaf-sheet]
Salt and ground pepperAdded after the second mincing[onaf-sheet]

Total time across the recorded steps: 6 h – 7 h

Start
Drag the bar or press Play

What changes: Old cheese is put through a meat mincer

Step 1 of 5
Mince the old cheese
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented

Latteria or Montasio aged 2–12 months. Output: minced cheese.

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

Formai del cìt is a strong, slightly spicy cheese spread made at home from leftover or faulty Latteria or Montasio cheese. The cheese is minced, kneaded by hand with milk or cream, left for 6–7 hours at room temperature, minced again and seasoned. It is a cheese preparation, not a new make; the flavour comes from the aged cheese and grows sharper as it is kept. Made in 5 steps over 6 h – 7 h. The longest step, rest at room temperature, takes 6–7 h (ERSA 2017).

Key numbers
Main step6–7 hReported[ersa][onaf-sheet]Rest at room temperature

What makes this one different

It is not made from milk but from old cheese, minced and kneaded with milk or cream. The name comes from the stone jar ('cìt') it was once stored in.

Rind
None
Size
No fixed shape; tubs

Related ferments

Safety

It is a soft, moist spread; the sources keep it in a cool room and eat it within 10 days.

Hazards the sources name: Staphylococcus aureus, found as a minor species in the Montasio natural milk cultures (a study of Montasio, a related Friulian cheese; not tested in this product).

History and sources

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

In the past it was made in more or less every family, also in Tramonti di Sotto, as a use for leftover or poor-quality cheese. It is listed in the INSOR Atlante dei Prodotti Tipici (1989–1995), and people still travel to Tramonti di Sopra to buy it.

Starter
The sources we found do not say how its fermentation begins.
Temperature, salt and pH
The sources we found give no temperature, salt or pH figure for any of its steps.
  1. [ersa] ERSA, Agenzia regionale per lo sviluppo rurale del Friuli Venezia Giulia, prodotti tradizionali, Formai del cìt (page saved 22 August 2017)gov
  2. [onaf-sheet] ONAF (Organizzazione Nazionale Assaggiatori Formaggi), technical sheet Formai del cìtweb
  3. [onaf] ONAF, scheda formaggio 'Formai del cìt' (id 398)web
  4. [rossi2024] Rossi A., Marroni F., Renoldi N., Di Filippo G., Gover E., Marino M., Innocente N. 2024, An integrated approach to explore the microbial biodiversity of natural milk cultures for cheesemaking, Journal of Dairy Science 107, pp. 4288–4297 (abstract)paper