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Cheese from Italy, Campania

Marzolino di TeanoMarzellina di Teano

In March only, raw sheep and goat milk is mixed straight after milking and set with a coagulant made from thistle flowers. The fine curd goes into small narrow moulds, is lightly salted and covered with dried wild thyme. The small soft cheeses ripen about six months in niches cut into the tuff walls of cellar stairways.

Fully documentedCheese3 months – 6 monthsTraditional food product (PAT, Campania), listed with CasoperutoFamily: Uncooked or semi-cooked pressed cheese family (tomme, Saint-Nectaire, Reblochon, Morbier, Raclette)

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedA farm tradition with no fixed amounts in the sheets. Each cheese is a small oblong prism of about 150 g.
Raw whole sheep milk and goat milk, mixed and filtered as soon as milked[campania-sheet][onaf-sheet]
Vegetable coagulant from thistle flowers picked in summerMade by soaking and filtering the flowers; the sheets name Cynara cardunculus[campania-sheet][onaf-sheet]
Salt[campania-sheet]
Dried wild thyme leaves[campania-sheet][onaf-sheet]

Total time across the recorded steps: 3 months – 6 months

Start
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What changes: Fresh raw sheep and goat milk is mixed and filtered into the vat

Step 1 of 7
Mix and filter the milk
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactococcus lactis
Debaryomyces hansenii

Made only in March. Milk from the evening and morning milkings is worked as soon as it is milked.

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

In March only, raw sheep and goat milk is mixed straight after milking and set with a coagulant made from thistle flowers. The fine curd goes into small narrow moulds, is lightly salted and covered with dried wild thyme. The small soft cheeses ripen about six months in niches cut into the tuff walls of cellar stairways. Made in 7 steps over 3 months – 6 months. The longest step, ripen in tuff cellars, takes 3–6 months (Regione Campania 2015). Lactococcus lactis among bacteria and Debaryomyces hansenii among fungi dominated fermentation and maturation in Caciofiore, a related raw ewe's milk cheese curdled with thistle flowers and made without starter cultures does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step3–6 monthsReported[campania-sheet][onaf-sheet]Ripen in tuff cellars

What makes this one different

The soft, March-only sister of Casoperuto, from the same province of Caserta. Both use a thistle-flower coagulant, but Marzolino is dressed with wild thyme instead of pimpinella and ripens in tuff cellar niches, not in sealed jars.

Rind
Fairly thin and wrinkled, light straw yellow, covered with dried wild thyme
Size
Small, narrow oblong prism of about 150 g
Season
Made only in March

Related ferments

Safety

The cheese is made from raw milk.

Hazards the sources name: Escherichia coli and other Enterobacteriaceae, found in raw ewe's milk and in Caciofiore, a related thistle-curdled cheese.

History and sources

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

The regional sheet says the cheese is rare and close to dying out, because the family goat herds that were once common around Teano are disappearing. The ONAF sheet says local testimony shows the products have been made by the same method for at least 25 years, and that the ripening in niches of tuff cellars follows an old tradition.

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. [campania-sheet] Regione Campania, Assessorato Agricoltura, traditional products page 'Casoperuto e Marzolino di Teano' (last updated 13 March 2015), copy hosted by ONAFgov
  2. [onaf-sheet] ONAF (national organisation of cheese tasters), technical sheet 'Casoperuto e Marzolino di Teano'web
  3. [onaf] ONAF, cheese page 'Casoperuto e Marzolino di Teano' (id 1158)web
  4. [rampanti2023] Rampanti G, Belleggia L, Cardinali F, Milanović V, Osimani A, Garofalo C, Ferrocino I, Aquilanti L. 2023, Microbial Dynamics of a Specialty Italian Raw Ewe's Milk Cheese Curdled with Extracts from Spontaneous and Cultivated Onopordum tauricum Willd., Microorganisms 11(1):219 (Caciofiore, a related raw ewe's milk cheese curdled with thistle flowers; not this cheese)paper