Tastes of Southern Italy and Northern territories.
Thoughts and words dedicated to the Provolone Valpadana

Air of Southern Italy and land of the North.

You can be surprised, dear reader, curious enthusiast of food, of getting to know the history of our cheese. At some extent, it is the history of our Italy, that since the half of the Seventeenth century has been showing signs of restless tension. In fact, right in that not even so far century, Italian people really wanted to free themselves from their oppressor and to gather in one only compages the different regions of the Peninsula.

Well, when this finally happened, from 1861 the doors to the agriculture devolution opened wide, a wave of modernity and technology in the fields, which was already bearing its fruits in the most advanced and sound States of Europe. A united Italy and an agriculture that was leaving behind its first neolithic conservatism are the prerequisites of the improvements made by the pioneers, of whom we would like to speak.

They are men of the Southern Italy, shepherds who, in order to continue producing their cheese, which was their reason of life and support, cultivated the idea of going beyond the geographic barriers and of seizing the opportunity of the modernization and of the progress placed at disposal by people of goodwill and by the most advanced regions of the North of the Country.

Thus, provole and caciocavalli (stretched-curd cheeses, formaggi a pasta filata, as we call them nowadays in the specialized jargon: it is good to know it) that for millennia have been produced in the far away and quiet lands of the Southern Italy, could have been forged according to the rules and the colours of the plain of the Po, northern river par excellence, without loosing that original DNA, which is the reason of indelible mark.

But why leaving the beautiful Lucania or the sunny Campania, with its charming beauty, where the pastures weren’t lacking anyway? The point is that the most resourceful shepherds, sensitive to an evident improvement of their economic and life status, were feeling penalized because their flocks were producing too little milk and the hot climate was quickly deteriorating this primary foodstuff and as a result the cheese was too dry.

In the Po Valley, on the contrary, breeding the cattle gave more satisfactions: there were more animals, they were better fed with abundant fodder, thanks to really fertile meadows, and the climate was of great help. In conclusion, they had to dare; so the dairymen moved their things and their personal ambitions in the dynamic and welcoming Lombardy and to the surrounding areas. Everything was settled and from those far dawn the Provolone Valpadana, dear reader, offers its important wealth received both from the South and from the North Italy.