STRACCHINI TASTING

It's well known that I have a weakness for cheese and when Formaggi Italia sent me a tasting of stracchini my taste buds started celebrating!

Tasting cheeses is an art and if guided by experts in the sector it becomes an unforgettable experience to be shared.

Did you know that Formaggi Italia offers guided tastings online?at this linkYou can sign up for the event, have products sent to you for an immersive experience, or simply follow the event online.

Below I leave you some information about the products and the link where you can buy them and receive them directly at home with a 10% discount by entering the discount code CUCINAMA. You will find much more of course, so take advantage of it!

You will find the products fromwww.Yndella.com, a portal of Italian food excellence, guaranteed by the experience of top-quality producers, known and selected one by one.

Let's go back to the stracchini I received: the Stracchino Monte Bronzone, the Taleggio DOP 1st quality and the Salva Cremasco DOP. Right in this sequence the advice for a better tasting.

STRACCHINO MONTE BRONZONE

It is one of the flagship products of the cheeses selected and aged by Capoferri.

Produced with raw cow's milk, it has the shape of a parallelepiped with a square or rectangular base, the rind is thin, soft, whitish in color, in the innermost part of the shape the paste is white, sometimes slightly hard, while the part near the rind is ivory-white in color, soft, often creamy. When still young it has a sweet and appropriately savoury taste, with slightly acidic notes and a strong aroma of milk and cream. In the matured one, with the rind tending towards orange, sometimes with residues of dregs, you can discover aromas of wet hay and stable, up to light truffle nuances.

It seems to date back to the 10th century. In 1882 Count Stefano Jacini wrote: “The term stracchino derives from the small soft cheeses that those shepherds, on their journey from the mountains to the plains and vice versa, usually make hastily at rest stations, with the milk of cows tired from the long journey”.

Monte Bronzone - Selezione Capoferri is still produced with raw milk from small, historic breeders who live and work in the meadows of Vigolo, Foresto Sparso, Adrara San Martino and San Rocco in the province of Bergamo.

Today the most famous recipes with stracchino are: pasta with stracchino and courgettes, the famous Focaccia di Recco, and risotto with stracchino and radicchio.

TALEGGIO DOP 1st quality

Taleggio DOP 1st quality by Capoferri is a cow's milk cheese typical of Lombardy. Each Taleggio form is a quadrangular parallelepiped, the edible rind is washed, sponged with water and salt, thin, soft, of a natural pink, given by the characteristic microflora. The paste is moist, soft, uniform and compact, of a light color that varies from white to straw, softer under the crust and, at the end of maturing, more crumbly in the center of the form.

It is a cheese that, in the low maturation (minimum 30/40 days) is sweet with aromas of milk and grass. With the passing of time it acquires aromas more linked to the undergrowth and the stable, with exciting hints of truffle.

The first mentions of this cheese come from Pliny, who described the Orobi people and their skill in transforming milk. The name, given to it by the valley where it was born, Val Taleggio, a beautiful corner of the Bergamo mountains, full of natural caves where the microclimate is perfect for the maturation of the cheese and for the creation of the characteristic molds on the rind. Its diffusion and fame occurred at the end of the nineteenth century, when the artisans brought the cheese-making technique from the valleys to the plains. Taleggio is perhaps the cheese that best represents the dairy production of Lombardy, where it is now produced in almost all its provinces, as well as in Veneto (Treviso) and Piedmont (Novara and Verbania-Cusio-Ossola). Initially it was called Stracchino, or Strachìn quader (to differentiate it from the round one) deriving from the term “stracc”, tired, alluding to the cows that returned weak from the mountain pastures after a long period of stay.

It is an excellent ingredient in the kitchen with risotto, gnocchi or melted with Polenta Taragna.

SAVE CREMASCO DOP

Salva Cremasco is a DOP cheese made from Lombard cow's milk, with a minimum maturation period of 75 days. The production area of ​​Salva Cremasco includes the entire territory of the provinces of Bergamo, Brescia, Cremona, Lecco, Lodi and Milan. The product has a quadrangular parallelepiped shape with a thin, smooth, sometimes flowery rind. It has a white paste, tending towards straw-yellow as the maturation period increases, with sparse, irregularly distributed eyes, a compact, crumbly consistency, softer in the part immediately under the rind due to the purely centripetal maturation. The flavour is aromatic and intense with more pronounced connotations as the maturation period progresses.

There are numerous testimonies that prove the historical presence of the product in the tradition of the places. The Etymological Dictionary of the Crema dialect and of the Crema localities published by Andrea Bombelli in 1940 under the entry “salva” defines it as “strachì da sàlva = stracchino cremasco hardened after being spread with oil and preserved for the winter”. Less recent traces remain rooted in the family memories of the producers and seasoners, still today involved in the protection and marketing of this product.

The sources interviewed all agree in attributing the semantic origin of the proper name to its function, that is, the need to save the surplus milk.

And again, in more recent times, it appears that the famous leader Bartolomeo Colleoni, captain general of the Serenissima sent to inspect the fortifications of Crema, received, among the gifts, on 26.8.1466 two forms of mature cheese whose name can be traced back to Salva Cremasco.

Etymologists or leaders, even today Salva Cremasco is a cheese to be discovered for its characteristic "double softness": a creamy side dish with a compact heart!

CAPOFERRI CHEESES
Capoferri Formaggi: An artisan knowledge that Aldo Capoferri has passed down to his sons Claudio and Andrea. An activity that, in its own small way, is keeping alive the rural economy of the hilly areas of Andrara San Matino (BG), whose pastures could otherwise be abandoned.

The cheeses and stracchino are collected twice a week from the small breeders, in the mountain hut or on the farm and transferred to the modern laboratory; then the maniacal care for the correct maturation of these dairy pearls begins.