Strachì del Nono Cirillo
Every September Ferdy makes stracchino the way his grandfather did, with milk from cows just down from the high pastures
In September the cows come down from the summer pastures of Val d’Inferno. They’ve spent the whole summer walking at altitude, and it shows: they’re strache, tired, as we say here.
They give little milk. But with that milk, people up in the huts used to make one particular cheese: strachì, the stracchino of the tired cows.
Every September Ferdy makes it again. He does it for one person: nonno Cirillo, his grandfather.
Who was nonno Cirillo
Cirillo was Ferdy’s grandfather. In 1928 he was a cheesemaker in Val d’Inferno. His life was livestock and land, like the life of everyone who lived in the mountains around Ornica.
Ferdy’s father had emigrated to France for work. So Ferdy grew up with his grandparents, nonna Petronilla and nonno Cirillo. They taught him how to make cheese, how to gather what the woods and meadows give, and how to live in the mountains by actually living there.
He spent a great deal of time with nonno Cirillo. In our family he’s become something of a legend.
Some recipes are never written down. You learn them by standing next to someone, season after season.
Why “strachì”
When the cows came back from the high pastures, nonno Cirillo made this stracchino in the mountain huts. Ferdy decided to bring it back in the Foppa hut, the way it was done back then.
Every September, on the way down with the cows, he stops in the lower meadows of the pasture and does what used to be done. The cows are tired, the milk is scarce, and so there are only a few cheeses. There’s no way to make more, and that’s how it should be.
How it’s made
We use only milk from pasture-fed Bruna Alpina Originale cows, milked by hand. It’s worked a munta calda: straight after milking, still warm, without ever going into a fridge.
There are three ingredients: raw milk, salt, rennet.
The cheeses are small and square. They age for about 40 days in hay flowers and thyme, with hay cut by hand with a ranza, the traditional scythe, on our own meadows. The flowers and hay stay on the rind, and they’re the first thing you smell when you bring it close to your nose.
What it tastes like
It’s a soft cheese, creamy when you cut it. The flavour is bold and savoury, with a floral note that comes from the rind.
People who taste it usually say the same thing: it tastes like milk used to taste. It’s hard to explain it better than that. In it are the scents of our milk and our mountains.
Few cheeses, autumn only
Strachì comes out as a limited edition in September and October. In 2023 we made 30 cheeses. When it’s gone, you’ll have to wait for next autumn, when the cows come back down.
The good thing about small things is that you can’t always have them.
Practical information
- What it is: soft raw-milk cheese from pasture-fed Bruna Alpina Originale cows
- Ingredients: raw cow’s milk, salt, rennet
- Ageing: about 40 days in hay flowers and thyme
- Sizes: cut piece about 800 g, whole cheese about 1.4 kg
- Availability: September–October, while stocks last
- Storage: it arrives vacuum-packed. Take it out of the packaging as soon as you receive it and keep it in the fridge at 0–4 °C. Best eaten within 30 days of packaging.
- Shipping: refrigerated, delivered in 24/48 hours, €6.90, free on orders over €99
- Note: raw-milk products are not recommended for vulnerable groups (children, the elderly, pregnant women, people with weakened immune systems)
- Produced by: Azienda Agricola Quarteroni Ferdinando, Lenna (BG), Italy
