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Cheese from Italy, Marche

Slattato

Fresh raw cow milk, cooled a few degrees below milking warmth, is set with local animal rennet in 30–40 minutes. The very fine curd is gathered by the warmth of the hands, pressed in a mould for 10 minutes, dry-salted up to two days and dipped in whey at 95 °C to smooth its skin. It ripens 7 days in a cool, damp room and is sold wrapped in fig or cabbage leaves.

Fully documentedCheese9 daysTraditional food product (PAT, Marche; listed since DGR 2985 of 30 November 1998)Family: Uncooked or semi-cooked pressed cheese family (tomme, Saint-Nectaire, Reblochon, Morbier, Raclette)

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedThe sheets give no amounts of milk or rennet. A cheese weighs 0.4–1.8 kg.
Whole raw cow milk from local beef breeds, fresh from milking[pat-sheet]
Local animal rennet[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]
Salt, rubbed on dry[pat-sheet]
Fig or cabbage leaves for wrapping[pat-sheet]

Total time across the recorded steps: 9 days

Start
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What changes: Rennet goes into the fresh milk and it sets in 30–40 minutes

Step 1 of 7
Add rennet to warm milk
Time
30–40 min
Reported
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented

The milk, fresh from milking, is let cool a few degrees before the rennet goes in. 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

Fresh raw cow milk, cooled a few degrees below milking warmth, is set with local animal rennet in 30–40 minutes. The very fine curd is gathered by the warmth of the hands, pressed in a mould for 10 minutes, dry-salted up to two days and dipped in whey at 95 °C to smooth its skin. It ripens 7 days in a cool, damp room and is sold wrapped in fig or cabbage leaves. Made in 7 steps over 9 days. The longest step, ripen in a cool, damp room, takes 7 days (Regione Marche 2014).

Key numbers
Main step7 daysReported[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]Ripen in a cool, damp room
Temperature95 °CReported[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]Dip in hot whey

What makes this one different

A one-week cow cheese whose curd is gathered by hand warmth, dry-salted, then scalded in whey at 95 °C to smooth the skin. It is sold wrapped in fig or cabbage leaves.

Rind
Thin, soft, cream-coloured
Size
Round, slumped cylinder 10–14 cm across and 4–7 cm high, 0.4–1.8 kg
Season
Made from October to March

Related ferments

Safety

The cheese is made from raw milk and ripens for seven days; the sheets say it is not aged further. They give no pH or salt figures. The dip in 95 °C whey is there to smooth the skin; the sheets do not give it as a heat treatment of the milk. 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.

History and sources

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

It was once made in place of the mixed sheep and goat caciotte in winter, when the ewes and goats were pregnant and their milk was not available, so it was made from autumn to winter. The Marche region identified it as a milk product with traditional character in 1998.

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. [pat-sheet] Regione Marche, Decreto del dirigente n. 73/CSI of 11 March 2014, update of the regional list of traditional products, annex B technical sheet 'Slattato'gov
  3. [onaf-sheet] ONAF (national organisation of cheese tasters), technical sheet 'Slattato'web
  4. [onaf] ONAF, cheese page 'Slattato' (id 426)web
  5. [aquilanti2011] Aquilanti L, Babini V, Santarelli S, Osimani A, Petruzzelli A, Clementi F (2011) Bacterial dynamics in a raw cow's milk Caciotta cheese manufactured with aqueous extract of Cynara cardunculus dried flowers. Letters in Applied Microbiology, doi 10.1111/j.1472-765x.2011.03053.x (abstract)paper