Southern Italian cheeses, part II: Ragusano, the king of Sicilian cheese.

There's cheese, and there's... well other cheese. Something like ricotta scanta has the beauty of inventive and food-saving consciousness. Yet cheeses can also be real masterpieces, in the sense of a craftsman's best work. Just like the best caciocavalli and provoloni out there: caiocavallo Podolico, provolone del Monaco, some of the best caciocavalli Silani, and my own favourite, Ragusano.

You don't often hear about Southern Italian cheese when the best Italian cheeses are named. It's almost always the Parmigiano Reggiano, Gorgonzola, Taleggio triad. What a lack of fantasy! It's a pity that these are the only cheeses mentioned, because Italy has more than 400 to choose from and many are at least as delicious and at times breathtaking as these three. Southern Italian cheeses suffer from another problem. They're clearly "something different", coming from a unique gastronomic background, much unlike Northern Italian cheese which often share characteristics with their alpine relatives, be they French, Swiss or Austrian. And different is good in my book, as long as it ain't weird.

Ragusano is a cow's raw milk cheese hailing from the Iblean plateau and the nearby city of Ragusa (doh!) in Sicily: it has been called the king of the island cheese by many Italian cheese experts, and while I haven't tasted all of the island's cheeses I do agree it is a great, imposing and important example of the craft. The first thing that strikes you is the sheer size of the cheese, and it's shape: a 12 to 16 kilo rectangular block which also gives the cheese it's Sicilian nickname scaluni i.e. step. I've occasionally seen a few of these babies on sale in Italy and they're impressive, but maybe it's just my being a male sample of the species, you know... boys and size.

What leaves me far more startled is that Ragusano is a pasta filata or spun curd cheese (like mozzarella), usually shaped by hand. Now, if you've never seen how these cheeses are shaped let me just describe this briefly: the cheese curd is fermented till it forms, on heating, those nice threads everyone loves on pizza, kneaded and shaped. It is very important to have a smooth, hole and puncture free "sheet" of cheese for proper shaping, salting and eventually aging. I've tried shaping mozzarella, something almost every school child in Naples gets to do in one of the standard field trips of elementary school's curriculum, and it's far from easy. Mozzarella on the other hand is not usually bigger than 500 grams, and shaping something this size by hand takes practice, but is far from impossible. Now think about the same procedure, only with a 15 kilo ball of curd, that has to be perfectly smooth, working only with your hands and maybe a wooden stick. This is what I call craftsmanship... I'm sure I'd end up gobbled up by the cheese blob. That would explain the stick. Once the huge ball is shaped it is then placed into wooden moulds, giving the characteristic shape. After some time the forms are salted, tied pair-wise and slung on a pole to age for a variable time, depending on the desired cheese. This way of aging cheese gives origin to the name caciocavallo, cacio, cheese, a cavallo, on a horseback.

I know fresh and semi-aged ragusano are often used in cooking in Sicily, but I'd rather leave any comments on that to our experts from Modica. I love the aged, stagionato kind, especially when it is made from free grazing cows of the local Modicana race, laden with the aroma of local herbs. (Nice to know that science has an explanation for my empiric observation.) The aged cheese has very little resemblance to a classic pasta filata cheese: no elastic paste rather a crumbly consistance more typical of Parmigiano. And the aroma! Herbaceous, piquant, intense... a real meditation cheese, great with wine. For research purpose only I tested a match with a very nice Nero d'Avola from Cusumano: very nice, with both cheese and wine balancing each other. Wine and cheese, the solution for the snobbish gourmet who's too lazy to cook.

Give me a form of Ragusano stagionato, a cellar full of the best Sicilian reds and bring me plenty of fresh bread every day. And then, please, come back in two month's time: I'm enjoying my food, thank you.

Comments

[ronald]

wonderful review alberto - Katia and I happily admit that we are addicted to the stuff and we have been known to receive packets of grated ragusano through the post in the UK... pastina is just not the same without it, and a simple pasta with basil and tomato sauce is transported to another level with a bit of ragusano - excellent fast food ;-).

[Katia]

Ronald and I are both writing our comments to your story. You clearly touched a soft spot, our beloved "Cosacavaddu". We just cannot seem to be able to do without it!
Now to perfect your triad "caciocavallo-good Sicilian red wine- bread", I would suggest the bread to be a good "pani ri casa muricanu", home made bread alla modicana, prepared with durum wheat and "criscenti" (sourdough yeast) cooked in a traditional wood-burning oven. Who needs anything else?

[Alberto]

Ronald, so that's the "white powder" Sicilian "families" are smuggling into the UK! I always thought it was coke :-))).

Katia, that pani ri casa sounds delicious, especially the wood burning oven is music to my ears ;-). Is it shaped in the classic shapes common to Palermo like mafalda, occhi di S.Lucia and so on?

[Katia]

We plan to have a blog story on the home made bread of Ragusa-Siracusa soon on our blog. Just to have an idea of the way it looks, go to the bottom of this page http://www.lovesicily.com/cookery-holidays/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=16&Itemid=42

Sorry for the long address and the narrow picture. It should give you an idea.

[Roberto Gautier]

Speaking of Ragusano stagionato, I tasted some that was aged a year on March 24, 2005 in Burlington, Vermont. Giuseppe Licitra, head of the Ragusano consortium, was in Vermont at a series of workshops organized by the Vermont Institute of Artisan Cheese. He lead the degustazione of Italian cheeses and wines in a cramped restaurant in downtown Burlington. At the base of his discussion was a passionate plea for healthy pastures, pasture-fed animals, raw milk and the figure of the artist/farmer/cheesemaker.
Has anyone read Licitra's book?

Best wishes/auguri,
Roberto Gautier - cheesemonger

[Alberto]

Roberto, thank you for the captivating story. Licitra's book is AFAIK sadly out of press. Actually, if you know of anyone who still sells the odd copy I'd love to get in touch with them, Ragusano is an incredibly fascinating cheese.

[Virgilio Pichierri]

I think La Ricotta Scante is the best cheese in all the world. Mix some with a large spoon of gravy in your dish and then mix until you have a cheesy sauce. Then add cavatelli or orriciete,or any kind of macaroni. With some wine, and crusty italian bread, you got a meal fit for a king.
Mangia Bene e Salute
La Signora Virgilio Pichierri M.D U.S.A.