December 22, 2023
Villa Camilla, San Siro, Largo Como, Italia
Buongiorno, today was a very lazy day. Still getting used to the time change. Seems really hard to adjust to this time, more than ever before. I had woken up early, probably 2 or 2:30. Went downstairs and read a little. Then went back upstairs about 5 or 6 and went back to sleep. It wasn’t until nearly 11 that I managed to get out of bed. I took a bath and got cleaned up before coming down.
Everyone was doing something. The IV was playing ping pong with his kids. George, V and Oliver played football and catch on the front lawn. Pietro and Serra went for a run. There was lunch which was primarily leftovers from dinner. Lasagne al forno, a caprese salad, a salad which was a combination of farro, ceci and orzo, and some green salad.
Still unable to get the sleep out of my brain, I went down for an afternoon nap. People apparently took the afternoon to go to the market for food. More food? There is so much food. I woke up again about 3:30 and went down stairs. Things were pretty much the same. Maybe a little calmer. The boys were playing Madden football. I must remark that the characters in the game are looking more and more lifelike. I went out and enjoyed a cigar on the patio over looking the front lawn and Largo Como. Very peaceful.
Most of the late afternoon was spent talking, playing and simply enjoyed each other's company. At 6pm there was a wine and cheese tasting. Now imagine the scene. We are all in the living room sitting around a large coffee table. The whole, ok most of it, family here at the time. Eleven people. The youngest hadn’t turned two yet, and the oldest is 73. Around the table are teenagers Oliver and George (both 14), Grace (16), V (19), IV (The better half Rochelle at home working still – 43), Serra (45), Pietro (43), Damilia (73), Mary (71), myself (71) and Luisa (1+). This is Italia, yes teenagers drink wine; they also eat cheese.
There were two people from Erbavaglio, a bottega and cheese shop on Via Sant’Anselmo, 38 in Aosta. One was the director of the project Stefano Lunardi. Stefano had spent more than a decade learning everything he can about the cheeses of the Aosta Valley. He looks at cheese from a completely different angle. He understands that cheese is a product with many levels of production.
It starts with the farmers who raise the animals which will give you the milk to make the cheese. This can be cow, goats, or sheep (mucche, capre o percorse). Here at this level of production there are many things to consider. First, is which animal. Each animal gives milk of differing flavors and colors. Second is the feed. Animals high in the mountains in the summer eat differently than they do in the valley fields in the winter. What they eat effects the milk, which in turn will affect the cheese it produces.
His comparison is to wine. The grape you choose to grow from which you will make you wine is affected by the soil and weather conditions in which it is grown. The pedigree of any wine is important to the ultimate product, and according to Stefano this is also true of cheese.
Now just as the pedigree is important, so is the casaro, or cheesemaker, or in French fromager. This is the guy in the latteria who actually makes the cheese. Just like with wine, you must start with good ingredients, in this case milk. Then how you turn that into cheese depends on what cheese you are making and with what ingredients.
Cheesemaking, or caseiculture, is the craft of making cheese. Today we often refer to this is an artisan. Lactalis (Kraft-Heinz), Fonterra Co-operative, FrieslandCampina, Dairy Farmers of America, Arla Foods and the other mass market cheese manufacturers aren’t artisans. They produce cheeses to be sold in large quantities. Unfortunately, what often happens when you mass market anything your production tends to be the middle of the road, and too often tame. As a mass producer you need have your product appeal to the widest variety of pallets. Taste isn’t so important.
However, Stefano has discovered true artisans. Maybe people with only thirty cows, or ten goats or twenty sheep These “farmers” then turn their product over to a casaro, an artisan whose trade and handicraft is to turn the milk into cheese. The casaro knows his raw ingredient and into which flavor of cheese it will become.
The casaro starts with the fresh warm milk. In the case of Fontana cheese production this must occur within two hours of “harvesting” the milk. Then the casaro much choose the next step. Generally it is to acidify the milk. If you what do you use? Do you add a coagulant? There are a number of choices, but the goal is to turn the milk into curds. Much the same as the winemaker does during the pressing of grapes.
Once you have the curd it must be stirred, cooked and washed. However, each of these steps and how they are done effects the final product. Then the curds and drained and prepared for aging. Maybe that is salting, maybe not. Each choice has an affect on the final product.
Like with wine the next step is aging the cheese. Cheese aged one month is different from cheese aged three months. Come cheese age well, others do not. Some cheeses, like bitto, have been known to age for decades and still retain or improve in flavor.
The cheesemonger or cheese seller, if they are truly doing their job properly, is akin to a sommelier. That is the point that Stefano is making in his stop in Aosta. We won’t be able to get these cheeses outside of the Aosta valley, but that is ok. That doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy them in the Aosta Valley.
We tasted twelve different cheeses. Quadrello di Cogne, Caciotto, Tometta di capra, Ribiola di pecora, Fontina d’alpeggio, Tronchetto di capra, Toma Becca d’Aveille, Gessato, Stravecchio, Tronchetto capra, Stagionato and Blu di Prasupiaz. While you may never encounter these cheeses in your town, village or big city you can come to understand them more. You can learn to stop being afraid of straying away from the manufactured cheese, and go to the better local artisan cheeses.
You have probably seen Ribiola, Fontina and Blue cheese. Honestly who hasn’t. I will say however that there was no comparison to what I thought I had and what these cheeses were. In particular was the fantastic Blu di Prasupiaz. Stefano brought out this “block” of cheese. It as about the size of a shoebox and looked like brown shoe box what had been soaked in water and then dried out. The magic took over when he cut through the box and exposed the beautiful cheese inside. This was probably the most fantastic blue cheese I have every eaten. That is saying a lot because I really like all forms of blue cheese.
The tasting went on for over two hours. It was an event which will live rich in my memory for a long time. Then this was followed by diner. It’s Italy what can one say. Dinner was risotto alla milanese, salsiccia alla griglia, vegetables and salad. The closing dish as Tiramisu.
It will take a week to digest all of this. Probably six months of continuous exercise to work it off, however it was worth it. One last note. You need to keep in mind those teenagers. They behaved remarkable well, drank the wine, ate the cheese and even asked intelligent, sharp questions about both the cheese and wine. They made us all very proud.
Visit Stefano at https://www.erbavoglioformaggi.it/anselmo/
Ciao, Enrico
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