National Geographic Traveller (UK) - Food
AS OLD AS THE HILLS
FOR CENTURIES, CHEESEMAKERS IN RURAL LAZIO HAVE PRODUCED PECORINO ROMANO, A SHEEP’S MILK CHEESE WHOSE FLAVOUR SPEAKS OF THE SURROUNDING LANDSCAPE. WORDS: RACHEL RODDY
I arrive at the dairy just in time to see the milk reach the right temperature: 180 litres from the morning’s milking, almost filling the stainless steel cauldron, hits a precise 42C. Through the screen door is a garden lined with olive trees and beyond them fields, which, when you look closely, are thick with tiny spring flowers, tufts of wild fennel, saw-edged chicory and menacing swirls of thistles. No wonder sheep have grazed here happily for thousands of years.
There’s rennet in the cauldron too, so the sheep’s milk has been transformed into brilliant white curds suspended in yellow whey. Francesco Marras uses his big hands to press the curds into perforated plastic baskets. Each one is then inverted into another basket, leaving the soon-to-be pecorino cheeses with maze-like imprints on top. Francesco’s dairy, Azienda Agricola Francesco Marras, is part of his home, surrounded by soft green pastures just outside the town of Tuscania, in central Italy’s Lazio region.
Google Maps tells me we’re in
Viterbo, the northernmost of Lazio’s five provinces, and an hour and half’s drive from Rome. Locals, however, always refer to the area as Tuscia. It’s a name that echoes ancient Etruria, one of the most significant and ancient of Italy’s historical regions, dating back to the 11th century BC. It was home to the Etruscans, whose civilisation and culture was central to the story of Italy and of Rome.
They also had a huge impact on the gastronomy of this area, with their evolved farming and planting of crops — wheat, barley, broad beans, lentils and more — as well as focaccia-making and cultivation of vines and olives. They were skilled at hunting and breeding animals, especially sheep, creating cheeses for which they used wild artichokes as rennet. The Etruscans passed this culinary patrimony on to the Romans, who absorbed it and made it their own.
Two and half thousand years later, this age-old food culture is still going strong. Francesco is going to salt or brine the curds, depending on what sort of pecorino he’s making — pecorino being the generic word for a cheese made with sheep’s milk. Living in Rome, I’m most familiar with pecorino romano, which is beloved in the capital, where it’s known as cacio. When it’s young — four or five months old — and still tender and mild, it’s eaten as a table cheese, especially in spring, paired with the first broad beans of the year. Then, as it ages it becomes grating cheese, its sharp, bossy flavour fundamental to the quartet of classic Roman pastas — carbonara, cacio e pepe, gricia (pecorino and guanciale, a cured pork) and amatriciana (pecorino, guanciale and tomato).
Francesco is Sardinian, and ever since the end of the 19th century, most pecorino romano DOC (denominazione di origine controllata, or controlled designation of origin) has been made on the island. However, 10% is still made in specific parts of Lazio, including Tuscia, which, thanks to its cheesemaking tradition, has a significant Sardinian community. The area is also home to flocks of Sardinian sheep, widely considered the best Italian breed for milk. Every milking is different, though, depending on temperature, humidity and season, and ageing is defined by the same factors, resulting in a real range of colours and textures.
Before we leave, Francesco offers up some tasters. First, a bright white pecorino, freshly made, then a pale and tender three-month-old. To finish there are craggy slices of three-year-old pecorino, golden-yellow, with flavours of hazelnuts, straw and salted butter, all of which linger long after I’ve driven past the olive trees, out of the gate and into Etruscan country.