Formaggio di fossa

Product The Fossa cheese is produced only at Talamello, in the Marches, and at Sogliano sul Rubicone, in Emilia-Romagna. The cheese is cured through use of an ancient technique that preserves sheep's-milk cheeses for an extended period.

Milk Whole, pasteurized ewe's milk along with rennet and salt. The cheese is made in the spring by the usual method and is aged in well-ventilated rooms until the end of July. The cheeses are put into cotton sacks, each containing about 10 kilos (22 pounds), and placed in the trenches, which are lined with straw, in the second week of August.

Origin In keeping with ancient tradition, sheepherding is practiced on a moderate scale on the slopes of Mounts Nerone, Catria and Petrano in the Apennines of the Pesaro area. Those slopes are thickly mantled by medicinal and aromatic plants that confer on the milk of the ewes that graze in the range's pastures a special aroma associated with the mountains as well as the customary fats and casein that are required for cheese-making. During the most favorable production season, the milk is collected and transformed into outstanding caciotte cheeses, which are then aged and infossate, which means being placed in a ditch or trench (fossa).

Characteristics Pecorino di Fossa has a pronounced odor of fermented cheese. The flavor is soft but rather savory or, in some cases, somewhat piquant.

History The commune of Sogliano sul Rubicone has the largest area of any community in the Romagna and the landowners, whose properties were of corresponding size, found it difficult to preserve cereals harvested in their fields. They therefore excavated trenches in the cellars of their homes in which they stored their grain, which was kept dry since the hollows were cut out of stone or tufa (solidified lava). When enemies invaded the district, the landowners would also conceal foodstuffs in the trenches. They found that cheeses stored in the fosse underwent an enzymatic fermentation that resulted in the reduction of their water and fat content. The yeasts that evolved in those trenches during the centuries that this form of curing cheeses has been practiced are unique. As a result, authentic Pecorino di Fossa is made only in the two communities of Talamello and Sogliano.

Gastronomy The pecorino can be used as a grating cheese and it is excellent sprinkled over pasta basted with good olive oil and dusted with pepper. It makes a good stuffing for ravioli or cappelletti but it is excellent

Period of infossatura The cheeses are left in the trenches until the Feast of St. Catherine on November 26.

Conservation Two days after their removal from the fosse, the cheeses are packaged under vacuum and they can be stored for up to a year without any loss of their characteristic qualities.