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Cheese from Italy, Veneto

Formaggio di SappadaPlodar Semar Kase (latteria)

Evening cow milk skimmed by letting the cream rise is mixed with fresh morning milk, warmed to 32 °C and set with rennet in 90 minutes; on summer pastures 10–50% goat milk may be added. The curd is broken small, cooked at 42–44 °C for 30–40 minutes, moulded and rested 24 hours, brined 24 hours and dry-salted 4–5 days. It ripens 60 days in a cellar and can be kept over a year.

Fully documentedCheese2.2 monthsPAT (traditional agri-food product, Veneto)Family: Uncooked or semi-cooked pressed cheese family (tomme, Saint-Nectaire, Reblochon, Morbier, Raclette)

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceThe sheets give temperatures and times, not doses or batch sizes. The Veneto atlas gives wheels of 4–6 kg; ONAF gives 5–7 kg.
Evening cow milk skimmed by creaming, with fresh whole morning milkPezzata Rossa and Bruna Alpina cows (ONAF); raw, or pasteurised for the latteria type (ONAF)[veneto-atlante][onaf-sheet]
Goat milk (summer pastures only, optional)10–50%[veneto-atlante][onaf-sheet]
RennetONAF says liquid calf rennet[veneto-atlante][onaf-sheet]
SaltThe Veneto atlas has salt added to the milk with the rennet; then brine and dry salt[veneto-atlante]

Total time across the recorded steps: 2.2 months

Start
Drag the bar or press Play

What changes: Cream rises on the evening milk and is skimmed off

Step 1 of 7
Skim the evening milk by creaming
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactobacillus
Pediococcus
Lactococcus
Enterococcus

The evening milk is left for the cream to rise and is skimmed, then mixed with fresh morning milk. In the summer pasture season goat milk may make up 10–50%.

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

Evening cow milk skimmed by letting the cream rise is mixed with fresh morning milk, warmed to 32 °C and set with rennet in 90 minutes; on summer pastures 10–50% goat milk may be added. The curd is broken small, cooked at 42–44 °C for 30–40 minutes, moulded and rested 24 hours, brined 24 hours and dry-salted 4–5 days. It ripens 60 days in a cellar and can be kept over a year. Made in 7 steps over 2.2 months. The longest step, ripen in the cellar, takes at least 2 months (Regione Veneto). Lactobacillus, Pediococcus, Lactococcus and Enterococcus, named as the most abundant genera of endogenous milk flora in 2-month-ripened raw-milk cheeses from Trentino malghe does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main stepat least 2 monthsReported[veneto-atlante][onaf-sheet]Ripen in the cellar
Temperature32 °CReported[veneto-atlante][onaf-sheet]Set with rennet

What makes this one different

Sappada's own mountain cheese, known by local dialect names. The village-dairy type comes from hay-fed cows and the summer-pasture type from grazing cows, and summer wheels may hold up to half goat milk.

Rind
Smooth, slightly darker than the paste, straw yellow to light hazelnut
Size
Veneto atlas 35–50 cm across, 7–10 cm high; ONAF 30–32 cm across, 6–8 cm high
Weight
4–6 kg (Veneto atlas); 5–7 kg (ONAF)
Season
Latteria all year; malga June to September (ONAF)

Related ferments

Variants

  • Latteria (Plodar Semar Kase)Village dairy, hay-fed cows, all year
  • Malga (Plodar Olbm Kase)Summer alpine pasture, grass-fed cows, raw milk, sometimes with goat milk

Safety

The Veneto atlas gives no heat treatment; ONAF says the latteria type may be pasteurised and the malga type is raw. The curd is warmed to 42–44 °C and ripened about 60 days or more; neither step is pasteurisation. 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 such as Gruyère or Comté, because of Listeria, Salmonella and Shiga-toxin E. coli, and it makes no exception for ripening time. A 14-year survey of raw-milk dairy products from north-eastern Italian alpine dairies (not this cheese) found coagulase-positive staphylococci and E. coli most often over the limits, in up to 19.6 % and 51.7 % of samples; butter, curd and fresh cream were the most contaminated.

Hazards the sources name: Coagulase-positive staphylococci, reaching almost 5 log CFU/g in the curd at the two farms using no starter, in Trentino malga cheese (a related semi-cooked raw-milk cheese; four farms); Listeria, Salmonella, staphylococcal toxins and these staphylococci were not found in the two-month cheese, but E. coli reached 4.5 log CFU/g in the cheese of one no-starter farm.

History and sources

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

The non-malga cheese was first called simply latteria, after the shared village dairies where families took turns. The Piave rises in Sappada's pastures. A 2019 magazine story says the village dairy was run as a social cooperative, where farmers delivered all their milk and took turns helping the cheesemaker, who gave back butter, cheese or ricotta. When the small farmers gave up, the dairy closed. Later the sisters Marta and Sara Pillerroner took the dairy over and run it today.

Starter
The sources we found do not say how its fermentation begins.
  1. [anses2022] ANSES 2022, Fromages au lait cru, quels risques pour la santé et comment mieux les prévenir (8 April 2022)gov
  2. [veneto-atlante] Regione Veneto, Atlante dei prodotti agroalimentari tradizionali del Veneto, Formaggi, 'Formaggio latteria di Sappada', p. 152gov
  3. [onaf-sheet] ONAF (national organisation of cheese tasters), technical sheet 'Formaggio di Sappada'web
  4. [ristorhunter] Orlando F. 2019, Plodar Kelder, formaggi e salumi come una volta (Plodar Kelder, the Sappada village dairy), RistorHunter, 22 July 2019web
  5. [lucchini2018] Lucchini R, Cardazzo B, Carraro L, et al. 2018, Contribution of natural milk culture to microbiota, safety and hygiene of raw milk cheese produced in alpine malga, Italian Journal of Food Safety 7(1), a study of semi-cooked raw-milk malga cheeses in Trentinopaper
  6. [prandi2026] Prandi I, Pezzuto A, Massaro A, et al. 2026, A Fourteen-Year Surveillance Study on the Microbiological Status of Raw Milk Dairy Products from Alpine Dairies in Northeastern Italy, Foods 15(9):1479 (abstract)paper