Caciocavallo Podolico

Caciocavallo Podolico is the stretched-curd cheese of the Lucanian Apennine and the Matera hills, made only from the milk of the Podolica cow — a grey, long-horned, half-wild breed said to have come from the Ukrainian steppe and now grazing the poor Apennine scrub, yielding little milk but of rare quality. Because the cows calve only in season, the cheese is made mostly between March and August; the hot paste is shaped like a tear and tied in pairs of 1.5 to 2.5 kg, then aged from a few months to four or five years, growing more complex all the while — buttery and sweet when young, sharp and piquant when old. A Slow Food Presidium, it was already recorded in the 1811 Statistica del Regno di Napoli and is classically served with Aglianico del Vulture and chestnut honey.

Young, it is springy and milky, buttery and mildly sweet; with age the paste turns firm and flaky, sharp and long on the palate, scented with pasture and wild herbs — best cut in slivers with a drop of honey.

Lactic bacteria acidify the fresh curd, and as the pH falls the curd sheds calcium and gains the ability to stretch. Plunged into water near 80°C, the casein proteins align into long parallel fibres, giving the smooth, layered, elastic paste of a pasta filata cheese. Brining salts and firms the surface and slows spoilage. Over months and years, enzymes break down the proteins and the rich Podolica milk fat, building the free amino acids, fatty acids and aroma compounds — and the crunch of tyrosine crystals — of a long-aged cheese.