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Cheese from Italy, Toscana

Marzolino di LucardoPecorino di Lucardo

Raw sheep milk is set at 38 °C with dried cardoon flowers, which take about two hours to curdle it. The cream that separates is kneaded back into the curd, and the shaped portions are dry-salted, wrapped in linen cloths, pierced and squeezed to drain for 2–3 days, then hung for a day. The bundles ripen in tufa cellars for 30–40 days or up to 6 months.

Fully documentedCheese33 days – 44 daysTraditional food product (PAT, Toscana)Family: Hard pressed ewe cheese family (Manchego and Pecorino Romano as templates)

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedRevived from a 1759 description by four producers; no batch size or doses are published. Each cheese weighs 0.9–1.1 kg.
Whole raw sheep milk[onaf-sheet]
Vegetable rennet (presura) from dried cardoon flowers, Cynara cardunculus[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]
Salt, rubbed on dry[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]
Olive oil (historically, to rub the rind)[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]

Total time across the recorded steps: 33 days – 44 days

Start
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38 °C

What changes: Dried cardoon flowers slowly curdle the sheep milk at 38 °C over about two hours

Step 1 of 6
Set with thistle rennet
Time
2 h
Reported
Temperature
38 °C
Reported
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
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 sheep milk is set at 38 °C with dried cardoon flowers, which take about two hours to curdle it. The cream that separates is kneaded back into the curd, and the shaped portions are dry-salted, wrapped in linen cloths, pierced and squeezed to drain for 2–3 days, then hung for a day. The bundles ripen in tufa cellars for 30–40 days or up to 6 months. Made in 6 steps over 33 days – 44 days. The longest step, ripen in a tufa cellar, takes 30–40 days (Regione Toscana).

Key numbers
Main step30–40 daysReported[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]Ripen in a tufa cellar
Temperature38 °CReported[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]Set with thistle rennet

What makes this one different

Set with cardoon flowers rather than animal rennet, with the separated cream kneaded back into the curd. The cheese takes its shape from a hanging cloth and is pierced and squeezed with canes to drain. It had died out and was revived from an 18th-century text.

Rind
Thin, slightly wrinkled with the cloth's weave; pale straw or orange-pink
Size
Irregular rounded bundle (fagotto), oval to truncated cone, 0.9–1.1 kg
Season
Made February to November (ONAF)

Related ferments

Variants

  • FrescoRipened about 30–40 days; tender, buttery, milk-white.
  • StagionatoRipened 5–6 months; compact, straw-yellow, slightly bitter.

Safety

Made from raw milk and ripened only 30–40 days in its fresh form. ANSES advises pregnant women, people over 65, young children and people with weak immunity not to eat raw-milk cheese, except cooked pressed cheeses.

History and sources

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

A 'cacio di Lucardo' appears in Boccaccio's Decameron, and in the late 18th century the cheese sold for almost twice the price of other good cheeses. Women made it, and the skill counted toward a dowry. The method was recovered from Giovanni Targioni Tozzetti's 1759 'Ragionamenti sopra l'agricoltura toscana' in an ARSIA and CIPA-AT Toscana project.

Starter
The sources we found do not say how its fermentation begins.
  1. [pat-sheet] Regione Toscana, traditional product sheet 'Marzolino di Lucardo' (copy hosted by ONAF)gov
  2. [onaf-sheet] ONAF (national organisation of cheese tasters), technical sheet 'Marzolino di Lucardo'web
  3. [onaf] ONAF, cheese page 'Marzolino di Lucardo' (id 915)web
  4. [anses2022] ANSES 2022, Fromages au lait cru, quels risques pour la santé et comment mieux les prévenir (8 April 2022)gov