Everyday Italian: Perfectly Period Party Platters – Part III

 

Musings from my good friend Bart

Cheese in Renaissance Italy

After that brisk jog through cheese history with the Ancients and the Middle Ages, we can finally talk about cheese in Renaissance Italy. Originally, my plan was to dive into my good friend Bartolomeo Scappi’s Opera for ideas and information about cheese, and maintain a laser-like focus so I didn’t go off the rails.

Uh... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

My good friend Scappi

He was the starting point of my look into Italian cheeses, though, and so want to at least give him a bit of a nod. Amongst this extensive and thorough instruction for his apprentices, Scappi very thoughtfully included a section of menus, one of which is what a well-appointed banquet side board ought to include, which is basically an extensive shopping list of snacks. He lists quite a few cheeses, largely by region, but also by season - you can only really get fresh cheeses when animals are in milk, for example, and those times come and go throughout the year.

Scappi names a fairly broad selection in his list. Some fresh, some cooked, and some aged. He was living and working in Rome, at this point, so local cheese would naturally make an appearance, but he also mentions cheeses from much further afield. Here's what he lists:

• March cheese - fresh, cow or sheep milk
• Raviggiolo - fresh, cow or sheep milk, possibly with a bit of goat milk
• Romagnolo - semi-hard, or cow/sheep milk
• Roman - various
• Ligurian - various
• Majorcan - various
• Caciocavallo - semi-soft, cow milk
• Provatura - semi-soft, buffalo or cow milk
• Mozzarella - soft, buffalo or cow milk
• Milk-snow - soft

I find that last one, ‘milk-snow,’ particularly interesting. He mentions it in a few places, but leaves it open to interpretation. Based on the serving suggestions in the other menus - he says to serve milk-snow with sugar, for example - I’m guessing it’s something akin to marscapone or another light, sweet cheese. He doesn’t mention keeping it chilled, so I’m guessing it won’t be something like whipped cream or ice cream, as I’ve seen it presented by others. It’s very curious!

And now we get to the point

The main part of my plan was to provide you all with a list of cheeses that were common in 16th century Italy, and are still easy enough to get today. This is that list. As you can see, there were – and are – a lot of options, with a lot of variety. If you find yourself at a loss for some of them, though, remember that imports were also common and potentially a good show of wealth, so it’s easy to fill in gaps with more common Alpine or French cheeses.

List of 16th c. cheese you can find in the 21st c.

Next: putting it all together