Stracchino Bronzone is a small soft cheese considered by the farmers of Monte Bronzone and Colli di San Fermo e Vigolo in the province of Bergamo to be the traditional product par excellence. It continues to be handcrafted and boasts ancient origins: as early as the 10th century, Count Stefano Jacini wrote, “The word stracchino derives from the small soft cheeses that those herdsmen, on their journey from the mountains to the plains and vice versa, used to pack in haste at rest stations, with the milk of the cows that were exhausted by the long journey.” The historicity and ancient ritual of the production processes of this cheese are extremely rigorous: whole cow’s milk begins to be processed immediately after milking with coagulation at a temperature of about 40 degrees. When the curd is ready, two breaks are made to evenly distribute the fat. The curd is then allowed to rest and transferred to square-shaped wooden molds. Subsequent extraction takes place in pieces the size of individual stracchinos, which are then placed in the wooden molds accompanied by their cloth. After about 12 hours they are freed from the cloth and placed back into the wooden molds where they complete the purging and take on the characteristic stripes imprinted by the ribbing of the plastic sheet underneath used for whey removal.
This is followed by the ripening and aging phase in cold, high humidity environments for about 20 days, after which the cheese is ready to be marketed.
Stracchino Bronzone is square-shaped and weighs about 1 kg. The rind is pinkish and soft while the white, homogeneous paste releases that sweet, slightly acidic flavor typical of milk and cream.
Today this centuries-old cheese is recognized by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Forestry as a Traditional Agri-food Product of the Lombardy Region.
