Provolone cheese and its origins

Like Mozzarella, Provolone is one of the pasta filata cheeses. Italian for ‘spun paste’, pasta filata cheeses are pulled–curd cheeses mixed with heated whey, then kneaded and stretched to a remarkably pliable consistency.

Moulded into fanciful shapes, wrapped in cords, and hung to ripen, Provolone develops an oily, golden brown rind. As it ages, the cheese becomes richer in yellow colour, firmer in texture, and more pronounced in flavour.

Despite its Southern Italian origins, versions of provolone are made in several countries. However the main production areas for Provolone remain in Italy, particularly the Northern Italian regions of Lombardy, Veneto, Emilia-Romagna and the province of Trentino.
In these regions there are thirteen certified cheese producers crafting the authenitic D.O.P. (Denominazione di Origine Protetta) label Provolone. Known as Provolone Valpadana, this traditional cow’s milk is made in two distinct varieties. This delicately flavoured Provolone is made with calf’s rennet and aged no longer than two to three months.

Dolce has creamy, milk taste and smooth, soft texture. Forms of dolce Provolone are relatively small, weighing a maximum of five and a half kilos. Piccante is made with goats and/ or Lamb’s rennet, the ageing process for piccante Provolone ranges from a minimum of three months to more than one year.

This cheese is drier, sharper and stronger than the dolce, so it’s best enjoyed for dessert, cooking and grating. Forms of Provolone Piccante can be as large as ninety kilos plus.

In 1861 the doors to the agriculture devolution opened wide, a wave of modernity and technology in the fields, which was already bearing its fruits in the most advanced and sound States of Europe.

A united Italy and an agriculture that was leaving behind its first neolithic conservatism are the prerequisites of the improvements made by the pioneers, of whom we would like to speak.

The men of the Southern Italy, shepherds who, in order to continue producing their cheese – which was their key source of sustenance – cultivated the idea of going beyond the geographic barriers and of seizing the prospect of the modernization and of the progress placed at disposal by people of benevolence and by the most advanced regions of the North of the Country.

Thus, provole and caciocavalli (stretched-curd cheeses, formaggi a pasta filata) that for millennia have been produced in the far away and quiet lands of the Southern Italy, could have been forged according to the rules and the colours of the plain of the Po, northern river par excellence, without losing that original DNA, which is the reason of indelible mark.

But why leaving the beautiful Lucania or the sunny Campania, with its tempting beauty, where the pastures weren’t lacking anyway? The point is that the most resourceful shepherds, sensitive to an evident improvement of their economic and life status, were feeling penalised because their flocks were producing too little milk and the hot climate was quickly deteriorating this primary foodstuff and as a result the cheese was too dry.

In the Po Valley, on the contrary, breeding the cattle gave more satisfactions: there were more animals, they were better fed with abundant fodder, thanks to really fertile meadows, and the climate was of great help. In conclusion, they had to dare; so the dairymen moved their things and their personal ambitions in the dynamic and welcoming Lombardy and to the surrounding areas.

This is how the curd is processed nowadays in the dairies of the Provolone Valpadana. But this happened also in the ancient times, among the mountains and the plateau of our Southern Italy, when the provolone was the cacio, cheese, used as a “test” for tasting the “filatura”, stretching, on the curd and see if it was good to make the most significant cheese, the caciocavallo.

The history, as we know it, sounds like this: the milk was squeezed on the pasture of the Southern Italy and it was delivered when the acidification was already completed and it was ready to become curd after being shaked, before reaching the dairy, which was often far and not easy to access, through uneven roads. The curd had to “stretch”, “fliare”, and the “test”, or better, the outcome of the Provolone, gave the go-ahead or not.

The stretching is still the crucial moment of the processing of the Provolone Valpadana; the result is a band, then it is wind round itself, and finally moulded in a way to avoid the manifestation of air balls inside it.

The moulding determines the form (which can be spherical, pear-shape, mandarin shape, cylindrical shape, or pancetta shape, or salami shape) and the size (from a few hectograms to more than 100 kilos).

In the same way, the type of rennet (of bovine or sheep origin) that was put in the milk will determine the Provolone sweet or spicy, de gustibus, according to your tastes.

This is the style of the Provolone Valpadana, self-confident and self-satisfied of its past and of its actual status of versatile and modern cheese that the international gastronomy cuddle and the connoisseurs won’t miss: sweet or spicy, fresh or mature, mandarin-shaped or cylindrical-shaped but always Provolone Valpadana P.D.O.
 

This article first appeared in the February 2010 edition of Gourmet Today.