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Cheese from Italy, Basilicata

Treccia duraTreccione (large coiled form)

Raw cow milk is warmed over a wood fire to 35–38 °C in a tinned copper kettle and set with calf paste rennet in a wooden tub. The curd is cut fine, then the previous day's whey starter ('cizza') and whey heated to 65–70 °C go in, and the curd ripens 4–5 hours under hot whey until it stretches. It is stretched in boiling water, braided, cooled in cold water and held about 15 minutes in saturated brine.

Fully documentedCheese5 h – 6.3 hTraditional food product (PAT, Basilicata)Family: Pasta filata (stretched-curd) cheese family

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedThe sheets give no doses. A braid is 6–7 cm across and 13–15 cm long, or up to 1 m when coiled as a treccione.
Whole raw cow milk, filtered[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]
Calf paste rennet[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]
Whey starter from the previous day's make ('cizza')[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]
Saturated brine[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]
Starterwhey starter from the previous day's make ('cizza')

Total time across the recorded steps: 5 h – 6.3 h

Start
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35–38 °C

What changes: The raw milk is warmed to 35–38 °C over a wood fire

Step 1 of 8
Warm the milk over a wood fire
Time
Not documented
Temperature
35–38 °C
Reported
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactococcus lactis
S. thermophilus
Enterococcus faecium
Streptococcus
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 warmed over a wood fire to 35–38 °C in a tinned copper kettle and set with calf paste rennet in a wooden tub. The curd is cut fine, then the previous day's whey starter ('cizza') and whey heated to 65–70 °C go in, and the curd ripens 4–5 hours under hot whey until it stretches. It is stretched in boiling water, braided, cooled in cold water and held about 15 minutes in saturated brine. Made in 8 steps over 5 h – 6.3 h. The longest step, ripen the curd under hot whey, takes 4–5 h (ALSIA (Agenzia lucana di sviluppo e innovazio…). In a related product, the natural whey starter of cow's milk used for caciocavallo in two Campania dairies (a 2022 study; this cheese's own starter was not tested), culture found Lactococcus lactis subsp. lactis, Streptococcus thermophilus and Enterococcus faecium, and sequencing found mostly Streptococcus (read as S. salivarius) with some Lactococcus lactis does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step4–5 hReported[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]Ripen the curd under hot whey
Temperature35–38 °CReported[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]Warm the milk over a wood fire

What makes this one different

Harder and more fibrous than scamorza. The curd ripens covered by its own hot whey, and the largest braids are coiled up to a metre long.

Rind
None; smooth white surface
Size
Braid 6–7 cm across, 13–15 cm long; up to 1 m as a coiled treccione
Season
Made all year

Related ferments

Safety

Made from raw milk; the curd is stretched in boiling water and the braid is held in saturated brine.

History and sources

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

History
The sources we found do not record its history.
  1. [pat-sheet] ALSIA (Agenzia lucana di sviluppo e innovazione in agricoltura), traditional food products (PAT) of Basilicata, sheet 'Treccia dura' (copy hosted by ONAF)gov
  2. [onaf-sheet] ONAF (national organisation of cheese tasters), technical sheet 'Treccia dura'web
  3. [foods2022-nws] Marasco R., Gazzillo M., Campolattano N., Sacco M., Muscariello L. (2022), Isolation and Identification of Lactic Acid Bacteria from Natural Whey Cultures of Buffalo and Cow Milk, Foods 11(2):233 (natural whey starters from two artisanal dairies in Campania)paper