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Cheese from Italy, Toscana

Pecorino della Lunigiana

Raw whole ewe milk is warmed to 30–35 °C and set with natural lamb rennet, made from dried lamb stomach. The curd is broken with a wooden stick, warmed again to 40–45 °C, packed by hand into bottomless wooden moulds and salted, usually in brine. It is eaten fresh at about 20 days or aged for 4 months or more.

Fully documentedCheese20 daysPAT (traditional agri-food product of Toscana)Family: Hard pressed ewe cheese family (Manchego and Pecorino Romano as templates)

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedNo fixed amounts are recorded. About 140–160 ewes give roughly 1 quintal of cheese a year; wheels weigh 1–3 kg.
Raw whole ewe milkThe historic breed is the Zerasca of Zeri, now with few animals left[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]
Natural lamb rennet (dried lamb stomach), rarely commercial rennet[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]
SaltUsually as a brine, sometimes rubbed on dry[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]

Total time across the recorded steps: 20 days

Start
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30–35 °CMilk proteinGel (curd)

What changes: Natural lamb rennet sets the warmed raw milk into a curd

Step 1 of 6
Warm the milk and add lamb rennet
Time
20–30 min
Reported
Temperature
30–35 °C
Reported
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented

Output: 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

Raw whole ewe milk is warmed to 30–35 °C and set with natural lamb rennet, made from dried lamb stomach. The curd is broken with a wooden stick, warmed again to 40–45 °C, packed by hand into bottomless wooden moulds and salted, usually in brine. It is eaten fresh at about 20 days or aged for 4 months or more. Made in 6 steps over 20 days. The longest step, ripen in cellars, takes at least 20 days (ONAF (national organisation of cheese tasters)).

Key numbers
Main stepat least 20 daysReported[onaf-sheet]Ripen in cellars
Temperature30–35 °CReported[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]Warm the milk and add lamb rennet

What makes this one different

One of the few Tuscan ewe cheeses whose curd is semi-cooked, warmed again to 40–45 °C before moulding. It is made in limited amounts and goes to home use and direct sale at the farm.

Rind
Fairly smooth; deep straw-yellow, ochre when aged
Size
Cylinder 15–22 cm across and 7–11 cm high
Season
Made all year (regional sheet); ONAF gives February to October

Related ferments

Variants

  • FrescoAbout 20 days; soft rind and soft, slightly sour paste.
  • StagionatoAt least 4 months; hard rind and firm, salty paste, grated on pasta.

Safety

Made from raw milk; salting, usually in brine, and ripening of about 20 days or more follow. 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 cheeses such as gruyère or comté; its page does not name pecorino. It adds that raw-milk cheese well cooked, as in an oven dish, no longer poses a risk.

Hazards the sources name: Escherichia coli O157 in raw ewe milk; in a challenge study of pecorino made by other recipes it was still 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 says Pliny the Elder mentions pecorino production in Tuscany in some passages. It says that by the mid-1800s this was already a specific cheese made with precise techniques, and that around Zeri the method is still passed down among shepherds and cheesemakers.

Starter
The sources we found do not say how its fermentation begins.
  1. [pat-sheet] Regione Toscana (photo ARSIA), PAT sheet 'Pecorino della Lunigiana'gov
  2. [onaf-sheet] ONAF (national organisation of cheese tasters), technical sheet 'Pecorino della Lunigiana'web
  3. [onaf] ONAF, cheese page 'Pecorino della Lunigiana' (id 931)web
  4. [schirone2012] Schirone M., Tofalo R., Visciano P., Corsetti A., Suzzi G. 2012, Biogenic Amines in Italian Pecorino Cheese, Frontiers in Microbiology 3:171, doi:10.3389/fmicb.2012.00171paper
  5. [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
  6. [anses2022] ANSES 2022, Fromages au lait cru, quels risques pour la santé et comment mieux les prévenir (8 April 2022)gov