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Cheese from Italy, Campania

Pecorino bagnolesecasu 'r pecora

Milk of the native Bagnolese sheep is warmed over a wood fire and set with lamb rennet in about half an hour. The curd is broken to hazelnut or maize-grain size, packed into wicker baskets, salted in brine or by hand and ripened at 10–15 °C from 20 days to more than 6 months. The whey goes to make ricotta.

Fully documentedCheese20 daysPAT (traditional food product, Campania); Slow Food Presidio; producers' disciplinareFamily: Hard pressed ewe cheese family (Manchego and Pecorino Romano as templates)

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceThe sheets give no batch amounts. New cheeses weigh at least 1.5 kg.
Whole milk of Bagnolese sheepAt least 70 %The rest from crossbred or other sheep of the area; evening and morning milk[disciplinare][onaf-sheet]
Lamb rennet, calf rennet or bothThe regional sheet names home-made lamb rennet[disciplinare][pat-sheet]
SaltAs about 20 % brine, or dry salt rubbed on[disciplinare][onaf-sheet]
Olive oil, wax, lard or chilli powder on the rindOptional[disciplinare][onaf-sheet]

Total time across the recorded steps: 20 days

Start
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37–40 °C

What changes: Starting material: Bagnolese sheep milk, warmed over a wood fire

Step 1 of 7
Warm the milk over a wood fire
Time
Not documented
Temperature
37–40 °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

Milk of the native Bagnolese sheep is warmed over a wood fire and set with lamb rennet in about half an hour. The curd is broken to hazelnut or maize-grain size, packed into wicker baskets, salted in brine or by hand and ripened at 10–15 °C from 20 days to more than 6 months. The whey goes to make ricotta. Made in 7 steps over 20 days. The longest step, ripen, takes at least 20 days (Pecorino Bagnolese Società Cooperativa Agricola) and runs at 10–15 °C (Pecorino Bagnolese Società Cooperativa Agricola). Salt is 20 % (Pecorino Bagnolese Società Cooperativa Agricola).

Key numbers
Main stepat least 20 daysSet[disciplinare][onaf-sheet]Ripen
Temperature10–15 °CSet[disciplinare][onaf-sheet]Ripen
Salt20 %Set[disciplinare][onaf-sheet]Salt

What makes this one different

It is made from the milk of the native Bagnolese sheep of the Laceno plateau, and its whey is kept for ricotta. Some aged cheeses ripen in pits with grape pomace, hay or straw (Presidio types).

Rind
Clean or treated with oil, wax, lard, or oil and chilli powder
Size
At least 1.5 kg when made; 12–20 cm across, 8–15 cm high
Season
Made all year, mostly November to July

Related ferments

Variants

  • FrescoRipened 20 days to 2 months.
  • SemistagionatoRipened 2–6 months.
  • StagionatoRipened 6 months or more; piquant, for grating.

Safety

The milk may be raw or heat-treated. In a challenge study, E. coli O157 added to raw ewe milk was still detectable in pecorino after 90 days, so raw-milk fresh cheeses rely on clean milk. ANSES, the French food safety agency, says Listeria and enterohaemorrhagic E. coli in raw-milk cheeses can kill. It advises pregnant women, people with weak immunity, people over 65 and young children to avoid raw-milk cheeses, except cooked pressed kinds such as Gruyère or Comté, and does not say whether its semi-cooked type counts. It adds that raw-milk cheese that is well cooked, as in an oven recipe, no longer poses a risk.

Hazards the sources name: Escherichia coli O157, added to raw ewe milk in a challenge study of Italian pecorino made by several methods, not this cheese; still countable at 60 days and detectable after 90 days of ripening.

History and sources

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

ONAF's sheet calls it an old cheese whose technique has passed between generations of herders and cheesemakers on the Laceno plateau, now made from a breed reduced to about a thousand head. The make is recorded as unchanged for at least 25 years from local testimony gathered when it was entered in the Campania list of traditional agri-food products, and it is a Slow Food Presidio. The producers' cooperative that wrote the disciplinare was formed in 2009 by five Bagnolese shepherds, and the disciplinare says it was written to promote a possible PGI or PDO.

Starter
The sources we found do not say how its fermentation begins.
  1. [pat-sheet] Regione Campania, Assessorato Agricoltura, Prodotti tradizionali, 'Pecorino bagnolese' (web page, updated 13 March 2015; copy hosted by ONAF)gov
  2. [disciplinare] Pecorino Bagnolese Società Cooperativa Agricola, producers' disciplinare 'Pecorino Bagnolese d'Irpinia' (copy hosted by ONAF)spec
  3. [onaf-sheet] ONAF (Organizzazione Nazionale Assaggiatori Formaggi), technical sheet 'Pecorino di Bagnolese'web
  4. [centorotola2021] Centorotola G., Sperandii A.F., Tucci P. et al. 2021, Survival rate of Escherichia coli O157 in artificially contaminated raw and thermized ewe milk in different Pecorino cheese production processes, International Journal of Food Microbiology 347:109175, doi:10.1016/j.ijfoodmicro.2021.109175 (abstract)paper
  5. [anses2022] ANSES 2022, Fromages au lait cru, quels risques pour la santé et comment mieux les prévenir (8 April 2022)gov