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Cheese from Italy, Campania

Provola affumicata

Raw cow milk is set with whey starter from the last make and calf rennet at 36–38 °C, and the curd is left to sour until a sample stretches in boiling water. It is stretched in water at 80 °C longer than mozzarella, shaped into ovals, brined and smoked about 10 minutes over damp burning straw. It is eaten after 2–3 days or aged up to 5 months.

Fully documentedCheese2 days – 5 monthsPAT (traditional food product, Campania)Family: Pasta filata (stretched-curd) cheese family

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedThe sheets give no amounts. A cheese weighs about 0.5 kg.
Raw whole cow milk[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]
Whey starter from the previous make[onaf-sheet]
Liquid calf rennet[onaf-sheet]
Brine[onaf-sheet]
Damp straw, burned for smoke[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]
Starterwhey starter from the previous make

Total time across the recorded steps: 2 days – 5 months

Start
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36–38 °C

What changes: Whey starter and calf rennet go into the raw milk at 36–38 °C

Step 1 of 7
Add starter and rennet
Time
Not documented
Temperature
36–38 °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 cow milk is set with whey starter from the last make and calf rennet at 36–38 °C, and the curd is left to sour until a sample stretches in boiling water. It is stretched in water at 80 °C longer than mozzarella, shaped into ovals, brined and smoked about 10 minutes over damp burning straw. It is eaten after 2–3 days or aged up to 5 months. Made in 7 steps over 2 days – 5 months. The longest step, mature or age, takes 2 days – 5 months (ONAF (Organizzazione Nazionale Assaggiatori F…).

Key numbers
Main step2 days – 5 monthsReported[onaf-sheet]Mature or age
Temperature36–38 °CReported[onaf-sheet]Add starter and rennet

What makes this one different

It is made like mozzarella, but stretched longer for a firmer paste and smoked briefly over straw, so it keeps for days or months. The regional sheet says it appears in 18th-century Neapolitan nativity scenes where mozzarella does not.

Rind
A thin, soft, straw-yellow skin when fresh; a drier ochre to reddish rind when aged
Size
Irregular oval, sometimes pinched where it was tied, about 0.5 kg
Smoke residues
Naturally smoked provola from Calabria carried more benzo[a]pyrene than provola made with smoke flavouring
Season
Made all year

Related ferments

Variants

  • FreshEaten after 2–3 days; thin soft skin.
  • AgedUp to 5 months; drier ochre to reddish rind and a sharper taste.

Safety

The milk is raw, though the curd is stretched in water at 80 °C. A study of Calabrian provola found more benzo[a]pyrene and benzo[a]anthracene in cheese smoked over a natural fire than in cheese given commercial smoke flavouring.

History and sources

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

ONAF calls provola the earliest documented Campanian stretched cheese and says it was widely shown in Neapolitan nativity scenes of the 1600s, where mozzarella rarely appears. It says smoking was once done only to keep the cheese longer and is now done for flavour. It says the cheese was often offered with bread to clergy who walked in procession to the monastery of San Lorenzo in Capua.

Microbes
No study we found names its microbes.
  1. [pat-sheet] Regione Campania, Assessorato Agricoltura, Prodotti tradizionali, 'Provola affumicata' (page last updated 13 March 2015; copy hosted by ONAF)gov
  2. [onaf-sheet] ONAF (Organizzazione Nazionale Assaggiatori Formaggi), technical sheet 'Provola affumicata', PAT Regione Campaniaweb
  3. [naccari2008] Naccari C., Cristani M., Licata P., Giofrè F., Trombetta D. 2008, Levels of benzo[a]pyrene and benzo[a]anthracene in smoked "Provola" cheese from Calabria (Italy), Food Additives & Contaminants Part B 1:78–84 (abstract)paper