Pound for pound, it costs almost as much as silver, though it is creamy gold in color.
Ladies and gentlemen, meet Caciocavallo Podolico. Caciocavallo Podolico takes its name from the Podolico cows, the only breed native to southern Italy,
the only cheese in Italy which is not -- cannot be -- industrially produced.
Caciocavallo, the most typical southern Italian cheese, takes its name from its method of production . hanging molds astride . a cavallo . a wooden rod.
Podolico cows have never spent a day in a stall. They are strictly free range cattle, free to roam the woods and forests of the Lucanian mountains.
Their diet consists exclusively of upland grasses, nettles, blueberries, rosehips, hawthorn, cornelian cherries, juniper and wild strawberries. All of
these mountain flavors can be tasted in the cheese.
The cheese is so expensive because it is so rare. Podolico cattle only provide milk in May and June, and the processing of Polodico cheese is intensely
labor-intensive.
Caciocavallo Podolico almost became extinct, since the milk from Podolico cows were excluded from EU milk quotas. It was estimated that there were only
about ten people in any given town who knew how to process the milk.
Local pride saved this precious cheese, which tastes of mountain flowers. A group of producers banded together and set up a consortium asking for DOC
status, which is pending.
For each million kilos of Mozzarella di bufala produced in the south of Italy, only one kilo of Caciocavallo Podolico is produced. But each kilo
represents a southern Italian farmer who refused to give up his heritage.
This article was written by Elizabeth Jennings, a writer and translator, who has lives in the south of Italy. | | |
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