Pecorino di Farindola

The cheese connects to the Roman caseus Vestinus produced by the Vestini peoples of the Gran Sasso foothills; Martial praised it as a frugal breakfast cheese, while Apicius included it in a spiced sauce recipe and Pliny the Elder counted it among the finest Italian cheeses served to emperors. The unique use of pig rennet — the only such practice documented in Italy — is likewise attested in ancient Roman sources. Through the 19th and early 20th centuries, the cheese was made exclusively by the massaie, the farm women of the Farindola area, who kept the technique alive while the men were away at summer pasture with the flocks. By the 1990s the tradition was nearly extinct; it was revived as a Slow Food Presidium, reconfirmed at the Cheese fair in Bra in 2017, and is listed as an Abruzzo PAT.

At forty days: mild, milky and faintly grassy, with a subtly piquant finish from the pig rennet that distinguishes it immediately from any lamb-rennet pecorino. Over one year: the paste turns crumbly and granular, the flavour bold, spicy and salty, with a lingering barnyard depth and a long, warming finish.

Pig gastric rennet contains a distinct protease profile — mainly pepsin — that cleaves milk caseins at different points from lamb or calf chymosin, generating shorter peptide chains that yield a softer, more piquant and less bitter curd. Warming raw sheep's milk to 35°C optimises pig pepsin activity while preserving native milk enzymes and beneficial bacteria. During aging, lipolysis by residual milk lipases releases free fatty acids — butyric and capric acids — that build the characteristic piquancy; proteolysis continues to break down the curd matrix, converting the texture from smooth to the characteristic granular crumble. Periodic rubbing of the rind with olive oil and wine vinegar regulates moisture loss and suppresses undesirable surface moulds.