That cheese is strictly linked to Podolic cow breed: the milk of Podolica is used exclusively to produce that cheese. Thus the production area matches the breeding area of that cow breed: in the province of Avellino you can find them upon the Picentini otherwise in Salerno Province you find them in Cilento park and upon the Alburni mountains; in Diano Wall and higher Sele river even where there are plain area pastures. From the Podolic cows, milked in the morning only, you obtain the milk that is heatd up to 40 degrees and pured into wooden tubs. Then you add the goat cheese rennet prepared in each farm. After an hour you make the breaking of curdled milk by a wooden stick (called rondella), until it reduce to particles as big as a maize grain. By another wooden stick (ruotolo), by a particolar movement you let the curdled milk fall to the bottom of the tub. Yhen you leave off the whey, you heat it up to 50° C and add it again to allow the fat matter elimination. You leave the whey again and you let the cheese mature for two hours. The curdled milk then is cut in slices, wet by hot water and brought to be elastic by another tool called menatela. Then you form the cheese giving the featuring shape to 2,5 kilos of product. That cheese is merged in cold water during the night and in the following morning they are left in the mix of sal and water (salamoia) for three days. They are tied two by two and hung by wooden poles for 120 days, the ideal period of seasoning. The Podolic Caciocavallo is linked to Transhumance tradition even for its flavour: in the summertime and autumn, when the cows are brought to Picentini mountains, the cheese gets aromatic features that exhalt its seasoning. In the winterime, the pasture in the plain, less varied, gives the caciocavallo some most marked aromas.
Caciocavallo cheese has a pale yellow color, you can feel it half-strong and homogeneous, compact as you cut it, it smells like milk and hay. In your mouth it seems lightly grainy and hot spicy. It is served in slices of two cm thick or in scales if it is much seasoned. It accompanies red wines, roasted chestnuts and pore mushrooms. It is the typical product that can represent a unique meal on the table. It is never cloying and conquers you at each bite, it is tasty and with a unmistakable feature.Someone, while serving it, prefers to get its tasting milder by matching it with chestnut honey or other ones strong as well. A matching that can be defined balanced but it certainly risks not to let you appreciate its organolectic richness
