Prime Ciliegie

First Cherries...

Eremo di San Marco

Andy visited Ascoli for a few days before heading to another farm, this time in Cagli. While he was here, we visited L'Eremo di San Marco, a grotto (cave) that has an old church built into it. The footpath leading up to it is gorgeous- oak and chestnut forest, a similar feel to what we found in Monte Rufeno, but denser and more forest-y. The view of Ascoli from the grotto is phenomenal... there is also a place where the path goes to a ledge just below the grotto that is a little scary because it drops straight down- a true cliff.

I've been so frustrated by the lack of footpaths/hiking close to Ascoli, and I finally found the footpath from the city that leads to this grotto (and also to Colle San Marco, a big hill that you can see from Ascoli). I had heard from several people that there was a footpath, but nobody could tell me where it started. One guy told us to follow the red and white strips... "what does that mean?" we thought. On the way back to Ascoli from the grotto (we drove), Sandy and Jonathan dropped us on the road so that we could follow the footpath down and figure out where in the city it ended/started. It was a little tricky, but we followed hand-painted red and white strips on the trees, buildings, poles, and rocks that marked the way to go. Finally, my Ascoli nature fix!

Sun-Grass-Sheep-Milk-Cheese

On Saturday it was a bit rainy in the morning. I had to drive the car to Orvieto to pick up Sandy, Jonathan, and Axel. They dropped me back off at the farm and then headed back to Ascoli for the rest of the break. When I got back, we ate a lunch of pea-quiche-pie stuff and sweet Easter bread. Then we decided to go out and work, because it seemed to be done raining. We gathered and burned trimmings, and also loaded the trailer with the bigger pieces of wood that were salvaged from the trimmings.

Around 6:30 or 7:00, we left to milk the sheep, as they must be milked in the morning and evening every day for the 6 months of the year that they produce milk. This was quite an educational experience. I milked a sheep once when I took a lambing class at Cal Poly and we had to get some milk for the lamb of a bad mommy, but in that case, a group of us tacked and held down the sheep while we gathered a small amount of milk. These sheep want to be milked (for the most part)- their babies were taken away, the females kept to grow the herd, and the males harvested for meat, so there is not other way to lighten the burden of the heavy milk in their udders. But each sheep has its' own personality and accompanying behaviors. Dario said sometimes they will poop in the milk bucket, which he feels they usually do in spite. Some he has to catch, some try to cut in front of others for their turn at being milked. In any case, it was a rather comical affair. These sheep are a lot cuter and show a lot more personality than other sheep I've encountered, actually communicating through their eyes. The sheep all have names, of course, and my favorite name was Ricotta. On the last day, when Andy and I were walking home in the rain, the sheep came over to us, very insistently demanding that we stay and chat awhile. The ones in front let us pet them, appearing to quite enjoy it. They are pretty darn hilarious.

Earlier that day, before we left for work, I helped Andy wash the cheese wheels. They are stored in a cave in their house, that they think may date to pre-Roman times. This area was a cultural center of the Etruscan civilization, and many of the caves in this area are from that period. A mold develops on the outside of the wheels, and they wash it off every few days, so that it doesn't grow enough to penetrate the rind, which protects the aging cheese inside.

Later I got to hang out with Anna while she made a batch of cheese. She makes it approximately every two 2.5 days, because that's how long it takes them to accumulate enough milk for a large wheel with the current size of their milking herd (9). I picked Anna's brain about her whole process... skip over the rest of this paragraph, unless you are like me and find the details of dairy culturing fascinating. She uses a traditional rennet taken from the stomach of animals, processed into a paste that she dissolves into water. You can buy liquid or powder, but they are much more processed. She adds a very small amount of dried milk cultures, which helps the good bacteria overcome the bad. She has a blend with several kinds of bacteria (4-5), but there are many other kinds of milk bacterias that you can buy. She gets hers from a friend who creates and orders his own custom-designed blends directly from a company that makes the cultures. You could culture the milk with the existing cultures in the milk, but it's safer this way, because it ensures that the desirable bacteria have enough numbers to overcome the undesirable bacteria.

She heats the milk to body temperature, adds the culture and rennet, and in less than an hour, the proteins solidify. She separates the solids from the whey, cutting the solid "pudding" with a knife to help remove the whey. She puts the solids into a mold to drain. Teseo and I each had a cup of whey, which tasted sweet, light, and delicious. It tastes much like the raw milk, which I tasted right after milking, but not as rich and creamy. As Anna was working the whey away from the solids, she also made us each a "cheese mouse," which is just a squished handful of fresh cheese. So good!

With the leftover whey, she makes ricotta. Ricotta means, re-cooked, and that's exactly what she does. With heat, several more milk proteins become solid. At body temperature, these particular proteins do not solidify, so it is necessary to apply heat. Cow's milk has fewer kinds of proteins, so it is not as good for making ricotta as sheep milk is, as most of its proteins solidify at body temperature. After 10 minutes or so, the ricotta rose to the surface, Anna fished it out with a slotted spoon, and dropped it into molds to drain. So easy! Dario told me that to tell someone, "tu fai la ricotta," (you make ricotta), it's like saying, you don't do anything, you just take what's given. The whey that is leftover from the ricotta is not devoid of nutrition. Anna said this would be the perfect thing to feed to pigs if they had any- apparently they love it!

I didn't get to see the rest of the process, but after a day or so, she adds salt to the cheese. This also helps the cheese form a crust, which protects it from mold as it ages in the cave. She doesn't put a new wheel into the cave right away, because otherwise it will not form a proper crust. In aging cheese, humidity and temperature are all-important: too dry, the cheese dries out, too wet, the cheese doesn't form a proper crust, and the mold is more likely to penetrate.

I bought a wheel to take back with me to Ascoli- I ate it so fast, it was so good! I was their second customer after Anna's mom! They are not licensed to sell their cheese yet, as their facilities aren't up to standards (Anna makes it in a regular ol' kitchen). They've applied for a grant to pay for a set-up that would allow them to be able to sell the cheese, but are still waiting to hear. For now, their main source of income is the olive oil. I hope they get the grant!