9040 Pecorino

I'm not a doctor or scientist, so a lot of the abstract of the article you link to was gobbledegook, but I found the presence of words like "enterococci", "enterobacteriaceae" and "coliforms" in an article about cheese a little disturbing.

My most memorable taste of pecorino was some offered to me by an elderly neighbour who keeps sheep, milks them and makes cheese.

I enjoy strong cheeses - well-aged Stilton and Roquefort are favourites - but this stuff brought tears to my eyes. :eeeek:

I've not seen the conditions in which the milk and cheese are produced, so I have no idea if there's a possibility it was contaminated with the nasties mentioned in the article, but it smelled of ammonia and the taste was so strongly acidic-bitter that I had to play the Wimpy Stranerio card and decline as politely as possible anything more than that first nibble.

Al

Are you going to stop eating it or prefer to fake ignorance?

Hi Sally
In my opinion, you`ll find good and bad producers with varying degrees of hygiene practices throughout all walks of food production - especially cheese and especially raw milk cheeses - so I`m sure this is not something exclusive to Abruzzese pecorino.

I am a food writer - and I have just written a fairly major contribuition to a book called 1001 Foods To Try Before You Die, and in the research behind the manufacture of some of the entries (which were all chosen by the editors), there were several so called `horror stories` - all of them relating to artisan produced foods.

I watched a programme on telly not so long ago in which a food scientist was arguing against a dairy farmer who sold raw milk products from the farm gate - the scientist was desperate to have raw milk and raw milk cheeses banned - and yet the farmer herself (and indeed my parents and many people I know) were brought up drinking milk straight from the udder!!

I`m not condoning poor hygiene, but we do tend to be very frightened of bacteria these days - after all, we live in the age of antibiotics and squirty anti-bacteria impregnated stuff that makes our worktops and such supposedly super safe - and yet they are helping to destroy our own natural immunity - so that when we do pick up bugs, they often hit harder anyway.

I wouldn`t stop buying Abruzzese pecorino on the strength of what you have just read - just be careful - as with any cheese, that you buy from a cheesemaker who cares about the cheese they are producing....for all the cowboys and couldn`t care less guys - there are so many more who do.

Liz

At least the Camembert producers in France won their battle to preserve the traditional taste as well of Camembert.
[url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/03/11/wcheese111.xml]Cheese traditionalists win 'Camembert war' - Telegraph[/url]

[quote=Sally Donaldson;85232][COLOR="White"]m[/COLOR]
Pecorino Sardo [/quote]

Some of this is made just 400m away from us.Some they age up to a year or more.

There are many artisan pecorino producers in and around Pienza, Toscana (only one of many reasons to visit here, although it's getting more and more touristy)

To continue, we eat large quantities of pecorino whenever we're in this region, (normally once a year) and we've never experienced any digestive problems.

Mind you I've had 60 years of eating indigenous food wherever I go, even Yorkshire!

If I can I eat unpasteurised cheeses (I do miss Keen's cheddar, Mrs Kirkham's LAncashire, Gorwydd Caerphilly and many more) and have never had a problem: this includes scraping off the odd blue bloom from non-blue cheeses. The only time I've ever been ill from food was from pasteurised Stilton. The listeria outbreaks one heard so much about a few years ago were from large commercial concerns making pasteurised cheeses.

Here in Italy I've found a local source of raw milk, and it's gorgeous. I agree with the above poster about natural immunity. I take a somewhat cavalier attitude to food hygiene and as indicated above have never had a problem.

I went to a cheese shop in Santo Stefano, where I was able to try an assortment of Pecorino cheeses. They were all made locally and were of various different ages, from a young one which was soft, sweet and creamy up to one which had been aged for two years in a cave but the one I most liked was a year old pecorino which had been covered and aged in what is left after grapes have been pressed for wine. It was mature and had a wonderful fruity aftertaste.

[quote=Nielo;85268]I went to a cheese shop in Santo Stefano, where I was able to try an assortment of Pecorino cheeses. They were all made locally and were of various different ages, from a young one which was soft, sweet and creamy up to one which had been aged for two years in a cave but the one I most liked was a year old pecorino which had been covered and aged in what is left after grapes have been pressed for wine. It was mature and had a wonderful fruity aftertaste.[/quote]
Have also had a cheese covered in grape skins, cant remember if it was a Pecorino though. Also another cheese with peperoncino, which our northern Italian friends go crazy over. Does help having the producer as a friend and his second farm below us as well. Milk straight from the cows whenever we need!!!
He also brought over some Mature Irish Cheddar and a Irish Blue Cheese the year before last, which went down very well coming up to Christmas. Trying to get him to bring another shipment in for later this year.

Yes, they do the peperoncino pecorino at the Pulcino shop in Montepulciano.
Stings your lips! but it's great.

There's also one aged in wood ash.

Slightly off thread, a friend's french au pair girl, several years ago, introduced her family and neighbours in Troyes to Crumbly Lancashire. They were all very impressed and she had to take loads every time she went home.

Once saw some imported "Chester" (sic) cheese in Angouleme.

"Nasties" are things you don't want in your product.

Belgian Lambic beers they open the windows at night and whatever floats in gets in. Plus whatever is living in the wooden fermenting casks. Hard lambics are basically vinegar. Soft lambics are still more acidic then average beers.

Sour dough bread is likely to have a few bacteria in it to.

You can go for factory produced products. Or you can go with something more variable. Take a chance. Roll the dice. It's great when things go right.

I guess Parma Ham is fairly well exposed to airborne bacteria.
In both the processing, and it's storage in bar and restaurant counters.

Why worry----

I suppose if you worry about everything that isn't pasteurised, irradiated, hormone injected, etc then you would never eat anything without a health warning on it. Twice in my 60 years, I have had food poisoning, once in Tunisia and the other in the Comores Islands. Other than that we have eaten at roadside stalls in Vietnam, Cambodia & Thailand and many other places with no problems at all. In those places you would expect to pick up something.
Actually saw some people in Sienna wiping their plates and knives/forks before their meal in case they were at risk of catching anything. Memories of Edwina Curry and the eggs scare in England come to mind!!!!
Cheese produced the traditional way has more flavour and I hope the food "scientists" never get their way and ruin everything.

ItalyMag members (along with cockroaches) are starting to sound like contenders for the ultimate survivors - what with our fearless consumption of deadly bacteria keeping our immune systems in elite condition, and our uncanny ability to live entirely "off-grid", relying only on produce from our trusty orto's, solar hot water & and heat from our trusty wood burning ovens (fueled naturally with off cuts from the bosco at the bottom of the garden). Bliss!

:notworthy:

mine's a "lanark blue" sandwich washed down with Timmermans lambicus blanche!