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Cheese from Italy, Campania

Manteca del Cilento

Raw cow milk is set with liquid calf rennet, broken to olive size and the curd left to sour at room temperature until it stretches; it is then stretched in boiling whey. Separately, the whey is heated to 75–80 °C, the floating flakes drained a day in cloth and worked by hand with cold water to free a whey butter. The stretched curd is wrapped around a ball of this butter, sealed and brined about 12 hours.

Fully documentedCheese37 hTraditional food product (PAT, Regione Campania); listed as at riskFamily: Pasta filata (stretched-curd) cheese family

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedNo doses are given. Each cheese weighs 0.4–0.5 kg and is 10–12 cm across.
Raw whole cow milk[onaf-sheet]
Liquid calf rennet[onaf-sheet]
Whey butter, made from the flakes ('prima ricotta') that rise from the heated whey[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]
Salt, as brine at 20% density[onaf-sheet]

Total time across the recorded steps: 37 h

Start
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What changes: Calf rennet sets the raw milk and the curd is broken to olive size

Step 1 of 6
Set with calf rennet and break the curd
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented

Cloth-filtered milk is warmed and set with liquid calf rennet; the curd is broken with the spino to olive size and left to settle.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Raw cow milk is set with liquid calf rennet, broken to olive size and the curd left to sour at room temperature until it stretches; it is then stretched in boiling whey. Separately, the whey is heated to 75–80 °C, the floating flakes drained a day in cloth and worked by hand with cold water to free a whey butter. The stretched curd is wrapped around a ball of this butter, sealed and brined about 12 hours. Made in 6 steps over 37 h. The longest step, make the whey butter, takes 25 h (Regione Campania 2015) and runs at 75–80 °C (Regione Campania 2015).

Key numbers
Main step25 hReported[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]Make the whey butter
Temperature75–80 °CReported[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]Make the whey butter

What makes this one different

It was made to keep the butter made in spring and summer until autumn. The butter comes from the cheese's own whey, heated to 75–80 °C, and is sealed inside a stretched-curd casing.

Rind
Thin skin, white to straw; harder with age
Size
Round or elongated with a small head, like a caciocavallo, 10–12 cm across
Season
March to October (ONAF)

Related ferments

Safety

The whey is heated to 75–80 °C to make the butter; the finished cheese is brined and sold fresh or kept briefly in a cold room. It is made from raw milk. The CDC advises people who are pregnant, aged 65 or over or immunocompromised to avoid any cheese made with raw milk, unless it is heated until steaming hot.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

The name comes from the Spanish word for butter; it let shepherds keep spring and summer butter until they came down to the valleys in autumn.

Starter
The sources we found do not say how its fermentation begins.
Microbes
No study we found names its microbes.
  1. [pat-sheet] Regione Campania, Assessorato Agricoltura, Prodotti tradizionali, 'Manteca del Cilento' (web page, updated 13 March 2015; copy hosted by ONAF)gov
  2. [onaf-sheet] ONAF (national organisation of cheese tasters), technical sheet 'Manteca del Cilento'web
  3. [onaf] ONAF, cheese page 'Manteca del Cilento' (id 1177)web
  4. [cdc-listeria] CDC, Preventing Listeria infection (safer food choices; cheese made with raw milk)gov