We love them. We have learned how they are born; we have learned them rules to serve them and taste them, we even learned to make them at home. Now we learn to conserve them.

We have turned toFerrari organic farm, a small producer who has been making cheeses in a natural way (without pasteurization) for 30 years with their cows, goats and sheep's milk in Dego (SV), on the Ligurian Apennines: from classic cheeses to mozzarella, from Primo Sale and ricotta to scamorze, tome, caciotta, simil-brie.

"It's a life that we make cheeses!" – he says proudly Mario Ferrari. And we ask him the advice to keep them. In the meantime, how long can we keep them? "The fresh ones do not last an exaggeration and they change taste. Other types they do not have deadlines: at most they continue to age – at the limit then they become grated cheeses ". This is an important first indication: cheese, if stored well, it lasts forever.

Let's immediately remove a doubt: out or inside the fridge? "The fresh must be kept in the fridge; the others depends on your home: if we have a pantry or a cellar, in any case a point that is not overly hot, it can very well be kept out of the fridge ". If it's too hot, in fact, the "sweat" cheese: fat cola. "It's not bad – Ferrari says – but it changes the taste a little".

The right temperature? It is 10 ° -12 °; up to 15 ° there is no problem. So if we are lucky enough to keep them out of the fridge, if they are whole they will simply be placed on a plate or on a cutting board.

It is true that they do not have to suffer thermal changes? "Better, because it changes. For once nothing happens, but hot – cold – hot – cold suffers, loses the values ​​of its taste ". And the factor humidity? "We must take it into consideration because the cheese do not dry too much. Otherwise the crust becomes too hard and it ages badly inside: with the right constant temperature, it dries slowly both outside and inside.

But often we do not buy a whole cheese, or a caciotta – even if it is a habit of consumption that should be questioned, just because buy whole cheese from the producers – which are very well preserved, in fact! – it would tend to be the ideal choice. But, so be it, we often find ourselves with the classic 'slice of cheese, you want because we bought that, or because we opened the form.

"Once opened, close the open part so as not to dry – Ferrari continues. Outside or inside the fridge they are. And here comes the doubt: cover how? Film, aluminum, paper, cloth … It is said that plastic – the film, therefore, does not go well … "The film is not big problem – Ferrari short version. We are talking about keeping a slice, a part of cheese, not a shape that has to stay there to season … He sometimes also uses the silver card, even if that oily it's better. The damp cloththen, without a doubt, it keeps the cheese softer. Having said that, it is true that the cheese must breathe: "If you keep the most seasoned cheeses in the plastic (even in the classic box grated cheese, in theory made ad hoc, n.d.r) they breathe too little and if a cheese does not breathe, taste is altered ".

Here we continue to talk about taste, but the nutrients? And even more: food security? In other words, if a cheese is badly preserved, can it go wrong? "No, mildly appears" – Ferrari says – "The molds are almost all good; the only mold bad, rare, it's the one on the rose, reddish. For the rest, cheese can be eaten very well even with molds ". Yeah, not at all there are many cheeses of excellence with mold, which is just that good! If you do not want to eat the mold that has formed, just enough wash the cheese with water.

And finally, a 'question': you can keep the cheeses … in the freezer? "Well. No fresh cheese; the other types wanting yes, they can be frozen … ".

Carola Traverso Saibante
February 2019

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