In life, not everyone can be a superstar. That, of course, doesn’t mean that each person isn’t important or can’t live up to certain standards. The same can be said of cheeses.
Taleggio cheese is not a household name and probably many people have never even heard of it. However, that doesn’t mean to say that it is not a good quality cheese, with many interesting qualities.
As we shall see, this cheese has been made for centuries, producing a tasty, nutritious product, which in this day and age is now made to the highest standards.
Inconspicuous Beginnings
It’s hard to know exactly when what we know as Taleggio cheese came into being. Some claim that it has been around since Roman times. The production process for Taleggio is fairly simple and cheese has certainly been around since ancient times, so it’s more than possible that something similar to Taleggio was consumed by Caesar and his friends.
In any case, there exist documents from the 13th century that suggest that by this time, Taleggio was alive and kicking and both being bought and sold as well as being used in bartering.
As it happens, the name Taleggio is a more modern addition. It comes from the Val Taleggio, an alpine valley found in the Lombardy region of Northern. Before this, Taleggio went by the name of “Stracchino Quadro di Milano”. In 1914, the name morphed into “Stracchino Quadro di Taleggio”, eventually being shortened to just Taleggio.
The Way It’s Made
As they say, necessity is the Mother of invention and this seems to be the case for Taleggio. Most probably, it came into being as a result of people in days gone by looking for ways to preserve their excess milk.
As already noted, Taleggio is a type of Stracchino cheese. The name Stracchino is derived from the adjective ‘Stracco’ in the Lombard language (a Romance language spoken in the Lombardy region of Northern Italy), which means tired. It is a reference to the fact that cows were taken in the warmer months up onto the mountains in the Lombardy area to find lush green pasture. By the autumn they were then marched down again off the mountains.
As one might expect, the cows were considered to be tired after their warm weather exploits in the mountains, hence the cheese made from this cows’ milk was given the name Stracchino or in other words tired cheese!
In English, tired cheese doesn’t sound the most appetizing, but actually, the milk from these tired cows was thought to be of better quality as they had spent time grazing on fresh mountain pasture and as a consequence gave good yields and transmitted a variety of flavours to the cheese.
From Caves to the Modern Day
The Stracchino cheese produced can be eaten in a fresh or briefly ripened form, but obviously, in order to not waste the large quantities being produced, it was necessary to put some of the cheese into storage. This need is more than likely the beginnings of what we today know as Taleggio cheese.
In days gone by, the Stracchino cheese would have been put in local caves to store them as there the conditions were cool, a bit like a natural version of a fridge. The caves, however, contained moisture and different bacteria and moulds. As a result, the cheeses were regularly washed with a salt solution to preserve them by cleaning off unwanted mould formations on their surfaces.
Ironically, this regular washing of the cheese not only eliminates unwanted bacterial and fungi growth but actually encourages the development of others such as Brevibacterium and Geotrichum mould. These help the cheese mature and far from being harmful, are actually themselves perfectly edible.
The upshot of all this is that modern-day Taleggio was probably initially discovered and produced due to the need to preserve the large amounts of Stracchino cheese being produced. This is also the reason why Taleggio is known under the category of washed rind cheeses because it is made by regular rind washing using a salt solution.
Two more interesting little details are that the reddish rind of Taleggio is a feature of many cheeses produced in a similar way and is a consequence of these moulds that grow on the cheese’s surface and help it mature. Secondly, if you have ever wondered why cheese sometimes smells a bit like sweaty feet, here’s the answer because the Brevibacterium which form on the cheese are also present on our feet!
Obviously, over the years the actual process and techniques, not to mention conditions, used to produce Taleggio and its precursor cheeses have varied. This means that many kinds of cheese known as Taleggio could have been quite different in their appearance and taste.
In response to this problem, Taleggio was granted DO (Designation of Origin) status in 1988 and PDO (Protected Designation of Origin) Status in 1996. These are fancy names for Government decrees that limit the area in which a particular type of cheese can be made and regulate the process by which the respective cheese is made.
In other words, to ensure that Taleggio is a standard, quality product it should have a PDO label. Any other cheese purporting to be Taleggio, but without this label, is just a copy. Authentic Taleggio can only be produced in three regions of Northern Italy, the main one being Lombardy as already mentioned.
The actual production process is not dissimilar to many other kinds of cheese. After the curd is extracted from the milk, there are three key phases. Firstly, the heating of the curd, which is done at 22-25 °C for 8 to 16 hours. Next, the cheese is salted by either having salted spread over its surface or being soaked in a salt solution. Finally, the cheese is matured by being placed in cells that replicate the conditions in the caves where Taleggio would have been originally aged. The cheeses are turned and sponged with salt water once a week. This lasts for at least 35 days.
An Unsung Hero
In conclusion, we can say that Taleggio is a great cheese. It is not as well known as its cousin Gorgonzola (which in essence is very similar, the main difference being that it is matured by mould inside, rather than on the surface) or produced on such a large scale as other more famous cheeses.
However, it has all the elements of cheese greatness and is well worth a try!
Feel free to mention in the comments below if you have ever tried this cheese and what you think of it.
