[Sca-cooks] Re: Period Cheese... again?

[Louise Smithson]

> I am a bit skeptical, perhaps unfairly. Anyone have
> a good idea of 
> what types of cheese are really period, please
> critic the list below, 
> copied from the link above...
> 
> Anahita
> 
> ---------------
> 
> Cheese
> 
> This list includes cheeses that were known during
> the Middle Ages & 
> Renaissance, along with some 17th century varieties
> and a few modern 
> cheeses that are acceptable period substitutes.

I can only comment on the Italian ones. This excerpt
is taken from Scappi and lists several cheese
varieties.  Those that are fresh (i.e. soft cheeses)
and are given as to the area they come from or the
hard cheeses. 

First book page 6.  To understand the goodness of all
the cheeses, many fresh, some salted and how to
conserve them Chapter 8
Look for fresh cheeses, you want those made with fat
(creamy) milk, and those that do not have an aspect of
being salted for more than a day, because they will
become too strong.  I affirm that my experience is
true, that those that are made in Tuscany, that one
demands for the ravioli, should be made of the richest
milk, and are always the most tender and moderately
salted.  But that cheese, which in Milan, is called
fat cheese, and that is carried to German lands in the
rind of trees (tree bark), its goodness is when it is
moderately salted, and many times it will have an
erratic odor.  Many of the other salted cheese, like
Parmiggiano, and that of the Riviera and marzolini,
one finds they are the best when they are made
originally in March and all of June, and when one cuts
them they yield a perfect odor with some tears; but
other cheeses that are carried to Rome from the
Kingdom of Naples are made in a different fashion, one
calls these horse cheese (cacio cavallo is still a
Southern Italian cheese), and they are not as good as
Parmiggiano.  It is true that when they are fresh they
are fat, and they are in their goodness, that the
fresh provatura*, especially the provatura Marzoline
is much better when fresh than salted.  But these
cheese by us called “Sardesco” (sardinian), should be
hard, and white on the inside, even though by nature
they are black, and if you want to save (keep, store)
these said cheeses, you need to oil them, and look at
them frequently, excepting the “Sardesco”. 
* Provatura is actually buffalo milk cheese aka
mozzarella 
Taken from: Scappi, B. (1570). Opera dell'arte del
cucinare. Bologna, Arnaldo Forni 



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