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Cheese from Italy, Calabria

Musulupu dell'Aspromontemusulucu

Musulupu is a very fresh, unsalted sheep or goat cheese from the Aspromonte, pressed into hand-carved wooden moulds (musulupare) shaped like a breast, a woman's figure or sacred designs. Raw milk is set with kid or lamb rennet at 26–30 °C, the curd is broken to rice-grain size and scalded in whey. It is eaten at once or within 2–3 days, so it barely ferments; this is a boundary entry.

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedMade in small farm dairies; the sheets give no amounts. A cheese weighs 700 g to 4 kg.
Raw whole sheep or goat milk from two milkings, filtered[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]
Kid or lamb rennet, paste or liquid[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]
SaltListed among the ingredients of the regional sheet, which also says the cheese is not salted[pat-sheet]

Total time across the recorded steps: 1 h

Start
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26–30 °C

What changes: Kid or lamb rennet goes into the raw milk at 26–30 °C and sets it in an hour

Step 1 of 5
Set the milk with kid or lamb rennet
Time
1 h
Reported
Temperature
26–30 °C
Reported
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented

The curd then rests about 10 minutes to firm. Output: set curd.

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

Musulupu is a very fresh, unsalted sheep or goat cheese from the Aspromonte, pressed into hand-carved wooden moulds (musulupare) shaped like a breast, a woman's figure or sacred designs. Raw milk is set with kid or lamb rennet at 26–30 °C, the curd is broken to rice-grain size and scalded in whey. It is eaten at once or within 2–3 days, so it barely ferments; this is a boundary entry. Made in 5 steps over 1 h. The longest step, set the milk with kid or lamb rennet, takes 1 h (Regione Calabria) and runs at 26–30 °C (Regione Calabria).

Key numbers
Main step1 hReported[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]Set the milk with kid or lamb rennet
Temperature26–30 °CReported[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]Set the milk with kid or lamb rennet

What makes this one different

The curd is shaped in carved wooden moulds whose designs, some from Greek Orthodox sacred art, are the point of the cheese. It is not salted and not ripened.

Rind
None; smooth and ivory white, printed with the mould's design
Size
Varies with the mould; 700 g to 4 kg
Season
March to September

Related ferments

Safety

The milk is used raw and the cheese is neither salted nor ripened. The sheet says it is eaten at once or within 2–3 days. The regional sheet says raw milk can cause problems with total bacterial count, somatic cells and Staphylococcus aureus, and suggests testing the milk first or thermising or pasteurising it. ANSES 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 Comté.

Hazards the sources name: Coliforms, beta-glucuronidase-positive Escherichia coli and coagulase-positive staphylococci (found in raw goat milk in a study of four batches of the related raw goat cheese Cilentana, Campania; Salmonella and Listeria monocytogenes were not detected there); Staphylococcus aureus (the regional sheet names it as a problem of raw milk).

History and sources

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

Some scholars derive the name from the local Romance dialect, where it would mean 'wolf's mouthful'; others from the Grecanico language or from the Arabic maslûk, 'derived from milk'. The regional sheet says that until a few years ago shepherds made it mainly at Easter as a gift for the landowners. A small portion of curd that the shepherd shapes by hand and offers as a welcome at folk events is still called musulupu.

Starter
The sources we found do not say how its fermentation begins.
  1. [pat-sheet] Regione Calabria, Prodotti agro-alimentari tradizionali, product code 61 'Musulupu dell'Aspromonte' (scanned sheet; copy hosted by ONAF)gov
  2. [onaf-sheet] ONAF (Organizzazione Nazionale Assaggiatori Formaggi), technical sheet 'Musulupu dell'Aspromonte'web
  3. [onaf] ONAF, cheese page 'Musulupu dell'Aspromonte' (id 1120)web
  4. [cilentana2026] Casalino L, Di Paolo M, Egidio M, Polizzi G, Peruzy MF, Mazzocca R, D'Anza E, Marrone R. 2026, Physicochemical and Microbiological Characterization of Cilentana Goat Cheese, Foods 15(18):3226 (used for the microbes of raw goat milk; a related raw goat cheese, not this one)paper
  5. [anses2022] ANSES 2022, Fromages au lait cru, quels risques pour la santé et comment mieux les prévenir (8 April 2022)gov