Think On It

Pecorino of Sardinia — a new one for me

Some time back, I decided that the Pecorino from Sardinia was the best I’d ever tasted. I use quite a lot of it and I recommend it to anyone who likes cheese. And then when I was in Florence with eg, I happened upon a Sardinian restaurant called “Terra Terra.” What food we had! It may just have been our luck in choosing blindly, but there was one dish I am trying to copy and I hope before winter is over I’ll have it done, but you never know. Remember the broccoli pasta! I’ve searched the internet for a recipe, but there just isn’t one and it must be their own creation.

To get to the cheesy point, two of the dishes had a mystical smoky tone and I asked the manager what was up with that. She introduced me to smoked Sardinian pecorino. When eg returned to Washington she arranged to order it. I have to go into my cheese shop and plead on bended knee. Hey, I deserve some love for having introduced grana di bufala to so many people.

Here’s what the Sardinian foods website has to say about it:

Sardinia’s delicately flavoured sheep’s cheese Pecorino is now exported all over the world. Authentic Pecorino is made without any anomalous ingredients such as cow’s milk (instead of sheep’s milk). The most famed Sardinian cheese is smoked, spicy and sharp Fiore Sardo, which is aged over a long period.

Another English language site says:

FIORE SARDO DOP
Fiore Sardo is a cheese of very ancient origins that predates the Roman conquest of Sardinia. Fiore Sardo is older than Pecorino Romano and is mentioned by, among others, Father Francesco Gemelli and La Marmora. Fiore Sardo enjoyed great popularity in the nineteenth century when it was the only cheese to be exported from the island. It was particularly sought after by merchants in Naples, Leghorn and especially Genoa, where it was used in the preparation of pesto. Pecorino Fiore Sardo is made using ancient and special artisan techniques. It is an uncooked hard cheese made from fresh whole sheep’s milk curdled using lamb or kid rennet. The mixture is poured into moulds that will give the cheese its characteristic shape. After a brief period in brine, the moulds are lightly smoked and left to ripen in cool cellars in central Sardinia. The average weight of the finished product is 3.5 kilos: sometimes a bit more, sometimes a bit less depending on the conditions of manufacture. The rind varies from deep yellow to dark brown in colour and encases a paste that varies from white to straw-yellow. The sharpness of the flavour depends on the length of maturation. Pecorino Fiore Sardo is a genuine product and becomes a superb table cheese after only a few months of ageing. If aged for more than six months, it becomes an excellent grating cheese. The ratio of fat to dry substance is at least 40 per cent. The area of manufacture encompasses the entire island of Sardinia.

So why did it take me so long to find it? Just unlucky, I guess. See who sells it near you. Fiore Sardo means Sardinian flower and you’d have to a romantic thing like that, wouldn’t you? Clicking on those blue quotes will take you to the pages they come from.

7 comments October 8th, 2007