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Cheese from Italy, Toscana

Raviggiolo di pecora pistoieseRavaggiolo

A very fresh cheese of raw whole sheep milk, set with a natural coagulant at 38 °C in about 40 minutes. The curd is not cut; it is ladled whole onto leaves or rush mats and into small cone-shaped baskets, then lightly salted 6–7 hours later. It is a rennet-set cheese eaten within a few days.

Fully documentedCheese6.7 h – 7.7 hPAT (traditional agri-food product, Regione Toscana)Family: Uncooked or semi-cooked pressed cheese family (tomme, Saint-Nectaire, Reblochon, Morbier, Raclette)

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedFarm cheese with no fixed batch size; the sheets give no doses. Each cheese weighs about half a kilo.
Raw whole sheep milkMostly from Massese sheep kept on pasture or semi-wild[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]
Natural coagulantFig latex or dried lamb stomach in the regional sheet; liquid calf rennet or fig coagulant in the ONAF sheet[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]
Fine sea saltA light dry salting[onaf-sheet]

Total time across the recorded steps: 6.7 h – 7.7 h

Start
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38 °C

What changes: Raw whole sheep milk is warmed in the vat to 38 °C

Step 1 of 5
Warm the raw milk
Time
Not documented
Temperature
38 °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

A very fresh cheese of raw whole sheep milk, set with a natural coagulant at 38 °C in about 40 minutes. The curd is not cut; it is ladled whole onto leaves or rush mats and into small cone-shaped baskets, then lightly salted 6–7 hours later. It is a rennet-set cheese eaten within a few days. Made in 5 steps over 6.7 h – 7.7 h. The longest step, salt lightly, takes 6–7 h (Regione Toscana / ARSIA).

Key numbers
Main step6–7 hReported[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]Salt lightly
Temperature38 °CReported[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]Warm the raw milk

What makes this one different

The curd is never cut; it is ladled whole onto leaves or mats, so the cheese stays very wet and creamy. It is set with fig latex or dried lamb stomach (the ONAF sheet also names liquid calf rennet) and eaten within days.

Shape and size
Truncated cone of about 0.5 kg, sometimes slumped
Rind
None; milk-white, moist surface marked by the baskets
Season
October to March in the regional sheet; the ONAF sheet gives both March to October and October to March, and all year in large dairies

Related ferments

Safety

The cheese is made from raw milk and not ripened, so it is kept at 4 °C and eaten within 4–5 days. ANSES advises pregnant women, young children, people over 65 and people with weak immunity not to eat raw-milk cheeses other than pressed cooked ones, because of Listeria, Salmonella and Shiga-toxin E. coli.

History and sources

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

The ONAF sheet says the name may come from Raggiolo in the Pratomagno. It gives 1515 as the date of the first document for raviggiolo in general, when the magistrate of Bibbiena brought Pope Leo X cheeses in a basket lined with ferns. In the 1800s Pellegrino Artusi recommended raviggiolo as a filling for first courses. About 20 producers in the Pistoia mountains form a Slow Food presidium.

Starter
The sources we found do not say how its fermentation begins.
Microbes
No study we found names its microbes.
  1. [pat-sheet] Regione Toscana / ARSIA, Prodotti agroalimentari tradizionali, sheet «Raviggiolo di pecora pistoiese» (copy hosted by ONAF)gov
  2. [onaf-sheet] ONAF (Organizzazione Nazionale Assaggiatori Formaggi), technical sheet «Raviggiolo di pecora pistoiese»web
  3. [onaf] ONAF, cheese page «Raviggiolo di pecora pistoiese» (id 943)web
  4. [anses2022] ANSES 2022, Fromages au lait cru, quels risques pour la santé et comment mieux les prévenir (8 April 2022)gov