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Cheese from Italy, Sicilia

Vastedda palermitana

Raw whole cow milk is set at 35 °C with lamb paste rennet in a wooden tub, broken to lentil-size grains and scalded under hot whey for about 4 hours. The curd hangs on a stick overnight to sour, then is sliced, stretched in hot whey, shaped into a sealed ovoid and pressed in a deep plate into a flat loaf. It is brined 2–4 hours and eaten fresh about two days later.

Fully documentedCheese2.3 days – 2.4 daysTraditional food product (PAT, Regione Siciliana; D.M. 16 February 2018 list)Family: Pasta filata (stretched-curd) cheese family

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedTraditional make with wooden tools and no fixed amounts; the sheets give no doses. A cheese weighs about 1 kg.
Raw whole cow milk from local herds[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]
Lamb or kid paste rennetThe ONAF sheet names lamb paste rennet[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]
Hot whey (scotta) or boiling waterFor scalding and stretching; scotta is the whey left from making ricotta[onaf-sheet]
SaltAs a saturated brine[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]
Starternone added; the raw milk's natural microflora (microflora naturale in the Sicilian PAT sheet)

Total time across the recorded steps: 2.3 days – 2.4 days

Start
Drag the bar or press Play
shapes, not to countLactobacilliL. delbrueckii35 °C

What changes: Lamb paste rennet sets raw milk at 35 °C in a wooden tub

Step 1 of 8
Set the milk with paste rennet
Time
30 min – 1.3 h
Reported
Temperature
35 °C
Reported
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactobacilli
L. delbrueckii
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 whole cow milk is set at 35 °C with lamb paste rennet in a wooden tub, broken to lentil-size grains and scalded under hot whey for about 4 hours. The curd hangs on a stick overnight to sour, then is sliced, stretched in hot whey, shaped into a sealed ovoid and pressed in a deep plate into a flat loaf. It is brined 2–4 hours and eaten fresh about two days later. Made in 8 steps over 2.3 days – 2.4 days. The longest step, dry and sell fresh, takes 2 days (Regione Siciliana 2018). Streptococci and thermophilic lactobacilli, which dominated the curd and the wooden-vat biofilm in a study of Vastedda Palermitana; Lactobacillus delbrueckii rose during ripening does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step2 daysReported[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]Dry and sell fresh
Temperature35 °CReported[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]Set the milk with paste rennet

What makes this one different

It is made by a very similar method to Caciocavallo palermitano but shaped into a flat loaf, named after the vastedda bread, and eaten fresh. It uses cow milk, unlike the ewe-milk Vastedda della Valle del Belìce PDO.

Rind
None; smooth white-ivory surface
Size
About 1 kg; a very flat, loaf-shaped cylinder
Season
Made all year

Related ferments

Safety

Made from raw milk; the curd is scalded in whey at 80–85 °C and stretched in whey at the same heat. In a 2026 study of this cheese, stretching at 85-95 °C almost eliminated undesirable bacteria (abstract).

Hazards the sources name: Hygiene indicators (Enterobacteriaceae, coliforms), lower in the vat than on other tools and almost eliminated by stretching at 85-95 C in the study.

History and sources

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

The earliest record is a Palermo market price list of 21 March 1412 in the city archive.

  1. [pat-sheet] Regione Siciliana, Prodotti agroalimentari tradizionali (2018; D.M. 16 febbraio 2018), entry 'Vastedda Palermitana'gov
  2. [onaf-sheet] ONAF (national organisation of cheese tasters), technical sheet 'Vastedda palermitana'web
  3. [onaf] ONAF, cheese page 'Vastedda palermitana' (id 1235)web
  4. [alaimo2026] Alaimo F., Di Salvo E., Busetta G., Garofalo G., D'Ambrosio M., Barbera M., Furfaro M.E., Evola C., Patane S., Settanni L., Virga A.N., Gaglio R. 2026, Characterizing the microbiota of traditional wooden tools and their impact on the hygiene and quality of TAP Vastedda Palermitana cheese, International Journal of Food Microbiology 459, 111889 (abstract)paper