Caciocavallo

() is a type of ('stretched-curd') cheese made out of sheep's or cow's milk. It is produced throughout southern Italy, particularly in the Apennine Mountains and in the Gargano peninsula. Shaped like a teardrop, it is similar in taste to the aged southern Italian provolone cheese, with a hard edible rind.

Etymology

The Italian name of the cheese literally means 'horse cheese' and it is generally thought that the name derives from the fact that two cheese forms are always bound together with rope and then left to mature by placing them a cavallo, i.e. straddling, upon a horizontal stick or branch.

History

A sort of was first mentioned around 500 BC by Hippocrates, emphasising the "Greeks' cleverness in making cheese". Columella in his classic treatise on agriculture, De re rustica (35–45 CE), described precisely the methods used in its preparation, making it one of the oldest known cheeses in the world. Types of cheese with names similar to are common throughout the Balkans and southern Italy. In Sicily, the Ragusano DOP, known locally as had to drop the denomination "" in order to get DOP status.

Types

Many different types of exist in Italy, and several are recognised as (PAT), such as (produced using only milk from the Podolica cattle breed), (from Miscano Valley in the Apennines) or (often called ).

Protected geographical status (PDO)

is made with cow's milk in designated areas of southern Italy, in the regions of Basilicata, Calabria, Campania, Molise and Apulia, and gained protected geographical status in 1993.

In other languages

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Although the names are similar, each of these local speciality cheeses is different from both and each other.

See also

• List of Italian cheeses
• List of stretch-curd cheeses