A giant hard sheep's-milk cheese from Novara di Sicilia, high on the Peloritani mountains above Messina, aged as long as two years into an amber-crusted wheel of ten to twelve kilograms. Whole sheep's milk is curdled with lamb or kid rennet, the curd cut fine and scalded, then packed into wooden hoops and pierced again and again with a thin rod, the minaccino, to drive out the whey. Salted for weeks in coarse sea salt and rubbed with Sicilian olive oil, it ripens to a compact, pale-gold paste. It is the prize of Novara's Carnival cheese-rolling tournament, a Slow Food Presidio and a listed traditional Sicilian product.
Maiorchino has been made around Novara di Sicilia since at least the seventeenth century, in the years of Spanish rule over the island. It gives its name and its cheese to the Torneo del Maiorchino, a Carnival contest documented here since the 1600s, in which teams roll a whole seasoned wheel down the steep, winding streets of the old town, the throw guided by a cord wound round the cheese. The tournament is inscribed on the Tocatì register of traditional games linked to UNESCO's work on intangible heritage. The cheese is a Slow Food Presidio and has been listed as a Prodotto Agroalimentare Tradizionale since 1998, with Novara di Sicilia recognised in its own right.
Young, the paste is pale gold, close and faintly springy, milky and grassy with a gentle sheep's tang. With long ageing it dries hard and granular, sharp and piquant, deepening to a nutty, savoury bite with a lingering peppery finish, a cheese to shave over pasta or eat in slivers with bread and sweet Marsala. The rind darkens from amber to brown and carries the scent of the oil and the cellar.
This is a cooked-curd, long-aged cheese, and every step drives out water so it can keep for years. Lamb or kid rennet, rich in the enzyme chymosin, clots the milk at around 39°C; cutting the curd small and scalding it to about 60°C makes the protein network contract and expel whey, and the repeated piercing with the minaccino opens channels for still more to drain under pressure, leaving a dense, low-moisture paste. Weeks in coarse salt pull out yet more water and hold back spoilage bacteria. Over months and years the cheese's own enzymes and microbes slowly break proteins and fats down, proteolysis and lipolysis building the sharp, nutty, piquant flavours and the hard, crystalline texture, while the olive-oil rub keeps the rind from cracking and moulding as the wheel dries.
Variations
Made only from whole sheep's milk in the strict tradition, though some dairies blend in a little goat's milk. It is eaten across its life: fresh and mild within a few months, semi-hard as a table cheese, or aged a year or two to a hard grating cheese in the manner of a pecorino. Beyond the wheels rolled in the tournament, the same milk and method yield the smaller everyday pecorini and tume of the Messina hills, and the pierced-and-scalded technique is shared with other hard Sicilian sheep's cheeses.
On the Palate
Where Maiorchino sits in the Italian flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 30How it's made
8 steps · 30 min
- 130 min
Warm the whole sheep's milk to about 39°C and coagulate it with lamb or kid rennet until a firm curd forms.
- 215 min
Cut the curd finely to the size of rice grains and let it settle.
Watch outCut the curd right down to rice-grain size — fine cutting is what lets the whey drain out for a hard, years-keeping cheese.
- 340 min
Scald the curd to about 60°C, heating and stirring until it firms and knits together.
Watch outScald to about sixty degrees, stirring, until it firms and knits — this cook contracts the protein and forces out water for the dense, dry paste.
- 420 min
Pack the curd tightly into a wooden hoop, pressing out the first whey.
- 5180 min
Pierce the mass repeatedly with the thin minaccino rod and press, draining the whey over several hours.
Watch outPierce and press repeatedly with the thin rod — those channels drain still more whey; skip them and the center stays moist and won't age hard.
- 643200 min
Two days after unmoulding, salt the wheel with coarse sea salt and continue salting for close to a month.
- 760 min
Wash, turn and rub the wheel with Sicilian olive oil from the third month on, keeping the rind sound.
- 8345600 min
Age in a cool cellar for at least eight months, and up to two years for a hard grating cheese.
Archive tool suggestions — not reviewed
These legacy suggestions have not been evidence-reviewed and are not presented as required tools.
