Provolone del Monaco

Appearance & taste

Provolone del Monaco is oval melon-shaped or pear-like, without a stem end, and weighs 2.5 to 8 kg. The thin rind is yellowish with darker shading and almost smooth. Slight lengthwise indentations come from the raffia cords on which the cheese hangs in pairs to ripen; they divide the surface into at least six segments.

The paste is cream-coloured to yellowish, elastic, compact, soft and not crumbly. It has characteristic holes, the “partridge eyes”, up to 5 mm and occasionally up to 12 mm in diameter, mainly towards the centre. The cheese contains at least 40.5 % fat in dry matter. The specification describes the taste as mild and buttery with a pleasantly sharp note.

With longer ripening the taste becomes stronger: after seven to eight months the cheese darkens, the rind becomes thicker, the taste sharper and the paste firmer, but not hard or crumbly. Every cheese carries a brand on all sides with the black lettering “Provolone del Monaco” and the producer’s number. The label states, among other things, the minimum proportion of milk from cows of the native Agerolese breed, the rennet used and, if it exceeds six months, the ripening period.

Production

The raw milk of cows from the area whose lactation lasts at most 230 days is used. At least 40 % of their feed (as dry matter) consists of forage plants and/or branch cuttings, that is, leaves and twigs from pruning citrus and olive trees, from deciduous woods and from the terraces of the area; of this, there may be at most 15 kg a day. It is supplemented with cereals, hay or forage grass and legumes. The milk comes from a single, uncooled milking or from the milk of one day, cooled in the shed, and is not heated above 40 °C.

It is curdled at 34 to 42 °C in 40 to 60 minutes with kid rennet paste, liquid calf rennet or both, at least half of it kid rennet. The curd is cut to the size of maize grains, rests, is heated to 48 to 52 °C and rests again. The mass then matures in hemp cloths or perforated steel baskets until stretching tests show enough elasticity. It is cut into slices, kneaded, scalded with water at 85 to 95 °C and stretched into its shape. The cheese sets in cold water and then goes into saturated brine for 8 to 12 hours per kilogram.

Tied together in pairs, the cheeses first hang for 10 to 20 days at ambient temperature to dry, then for at least six months at 8 to 15 °C. Production takes place all year round. Rearing of the cows, cheesemaking and ripening take place in the area.

Origin & history

The area comprises 13 municipalities in the Monti Lattari on the Sorrento peninsula, including Agerola, Gragnano, Sorrento and Vico Equense. Deeply cut valleys reach several kilometres inland from the coast, with large differences in altitude and increasingly rocky terrain. Within a small space this creates very different microclimates: on the coast the mean annual temperature is 16 to 20 °C, on the north side 12 to 16 °C and at higher altitudes 8 to 12 °C. Besides the milk, the specification names the traditional craft processing and the microclimate of the ripening rooms as the reason for the cheese’s characteristics.

The cheese is closely linked to the native Agerolese cattle breed. According to the specification, cattle have been kept in the area since 264 BC, when the Picentes used cleared land for dairy cattle; the breed that has been called Agerolese since 1952 arose from crossing this stock with breeds introduced later. Under harsh conditions without pastures or shelters, it became undemanding and hardy. Its milk has more fat and protein than that of other breeds; according to the specification, as little as 20 % of it is enough to give the cheese its character. At the beginning of the 20th century the veterinarian Enrico Mollo described the cow and its importance for making Provolone.

The name goes back to the time when trade was concentrated on the market of Naples and the cheesemakers mainly made ripened cheese. Because the roads were poor, the farmers took their cheeses across the sea to Naples at night in rowing boats and wrapped themselves against the damp in wide cloaks like monks’ habits. The people at the market near the harbour therefore called them “monks”, and their cheese was soon called “Provolone del Monaco”, the monk’s cheese.