Italy is widely known for the high quality and variety of its products. One of these products is surely Italian cheese. In fact, in Italy every region has a typical cheese.
Since I’ve already talked about Hard Italian cheese in another article, today I’d like to focus on some of the most famous and typical soft Italian cheeses.
TALEGGIO
Let’s start from my favourite soft Italian cheese: taleggio. To be precise, taleggio is considered a semisoft cheese.
Its name comes from Val Taleggio, a valley in Lombardy.
Taleggio is a DOP cheese, so it can be produced only in specific Italian areas. It’s made with both pasteurized milk and raw milk and it’s aged for at least 35 days.
Taleggio has a strong aroma and a peculiar flavor. Personally, I believe that it is a soft Italian cheese that you either love or hate.
Taleggio can be used in different ways when cooking. For example, it can be eaten alone, or melted in risotto or on polenta.
RICOTTA
Ricotta is one of the most famous soft Italian cheeses all around the world.
It seems that its origins go back to the Bronze Age where ricotta was prepared using ceramic vessels.
Ricotta is usually a sweet creamy whey cheese made from sheep, cow or goat.
However, nowadays you can find also ricotta made of whey and a small amount of milk.
For its sweet and creamy consistency ricotta is used in both salted and sweet dishes. In fact, it can be added to pasta, used on pizzas or in ravioli but it can also be used in cheesecakes, cannoli, cassata or pastiera.
GORGONZOLA
Gorgonzola is another famous soft Italian cheese.
It’s a DOP cheese made from unskimmed cow’s milk to which starter bacteria and some spores of Penicillium glaucum are added.
Gorgonzola has a firm flavor, due to the presence of mold, so it’s another of those Italian cheeses that you either love or hate.
This cheese is usually aged for three months.
Gorgonzola can be eaten in many ways. It can be eaten alone, spread on a slice of bread, melted in risotto or on polenta, eaten on a pizza, etc.
SQUACQUERONE
The last soft Italian cheese I’mg going to add to this list is squacquerone – a very strange name, I know.
This is a DOP creamy cheese produced in Emilia-Romagna.
It’s produced with cow’s milk and it’s aged only for 4 or 5 days.
Squacquerone has a delicate taste, however it also has a slightly acid note.
You can spread it over a slice of bread or eat it in a piadina.
What about you? Have you ever tasted one of these soft Italian cheeses? What’s your favorite soft Italian cheese? And the one you don’t like at all?
Credits
Original image by Einladung_zum_Essen
