Corsican cheeses : The cheese Corsica is a product assimilated to the cultural heritage of the island and its inhabitants.
Cheese has its place in Corsica, which is above all a land of shepherds: these men and women live in perfect harmony with nature, which is sometimes hostile, but essential to their survival. Even if the techniques of making Corsican cheese evolve and change over time, the rules of life of these shepherds have been governed in the same way for decades and contribute to the quality of the cheese. cheese Corsican from their profession.
The uniqueness of Corsican cheese is a region where everything that makes Corsica a unique island in the Mediterranean is also due to its heritage, a true reflection of its complex history. The history of Corsica can be read as well in the anthropomorphic menhirs of Filitosa or the “Castelli” of Alta Rocca, as in the Genoese citadels of the coast, the churches of Castagniccia with rich Baroque ornaments or even the ancient remains. The living culture of Corsica, perpetuated by centuries of customs, finds all its expression in the voices, music or craftsmanship. The many cultural events or rural fairs which take place in Corsica become the showcase of a culture, an art of living and a craft industry which almost disappeared, at the same time as the society which carried them. Like their island, the Corsicans had a mixed reputation. If they are still credited, especially in the villages of the interior, with a certain sense of hospitality, their touchy and susceptible Corsican character is less and less reference. Tino Rossi's serenades got the better of the legendary “bandits of honor”. And when in the night, the “paghjelle”, traditional songs for three voices rise, it is the Corsican soul, proud and ardent that we hear singing.
Rich in its heritage, Corsica is also rich in living traditions where gastronomy and in particular cheese holds a prime place. Traditional farming and agriculture provide, over the seasons, the main part of the island agro-food production for which Corsica is famous. Also the seasons hold their place in the expression of the Corsican art of living: the Corsican gastronomy. A gastronomy where the authenticity of the local productions meets the quality of the elaboration of its products. The wines, some of which are very famous, defend their colors. To animal husbandry and agriculture, hunting and fishing add, always according to the seasons, their batch of flavors.
The Corsican shepherd is first and foremost a cheese maker. Milking is carried out in a different way for goats and the sheep, according to the knowledge that the shepherds have of animals: the goats are milked in a round enclosure (mandria, or presa) in which they can circulate freely. The shepherd of sheep brings his flock into a narrow and elongated enclosure (compulu), in which the sheep are pressed together. He begins to milk at one end of the compulu and gradually advances by passing the sheep behind him as he milked them.
The relationship of the goatherd (capraghju) to his animals is different from one animal to another: each is individualized by a name, and we know its behavior. Goats have the reputation of being, as it should be, more capricious, but also more attached to their shepherd a niolin saying states: "capre au patrone, pecure a rughjone" (goats are attached to the shepherd, the sheep to their grazing).
Once the milking is finished, the shepherd curds the milk with rennet obtained from stomachs de kids of milk, smoke-dried, reduced to powder, and mixed withwater. Milk is borrowed cold, and it curdles in less than two hours. We then break the curd, in order to get out the whey (seru), then we pour it into the Mussels cheese (fattoghja or casgiaghja) in bulrush braided (today they are, most often, in plastic) placed on a slightly hollowed and grooved board (scaffa or tavuleddu) which collects the whey and leads him to a cauldron de copper tinned (paghjolu). Cheeses drained are assembled two by two: we thus obtain a cheese of regular shapes which weighs, fresh, from 800 g to 1 kg. It will be salted two or three times, and refined little by little in a quarries wet et fresh. In the Sartenais, milk is quail at a heat of 30 °, the fresh cheese is pressed by hand in a wooden mold (scudedda) and matured on hurdles with wood smoke.
Once the cheese is made, the shepherd moves on to making the brocciu.
Brocciu is made from a mixture of whey and whole milk (puricciu) in the proportion of four fifths of whey and one fifth of whole milk. This whole milk was set aside before therenneting. The whey is first heated on its own, to a temperature of around 50 °. It is salted and then the puricciu is added to it. The mixture is brought to a temperature of 75 °; fire monitoring is a delicate operation. The fire should not be too bright (for this reason we exclude conifers among the fuels), but it should be continuous.
When the temperature approaches 75 °, a white precipitate forms which rises to the surface of the mixture where it constitutes a light, creamy and supple mass, which the shepherd carefully removes from the impurities brought by the wind (ash, dust) and which '' he gently deposits with an iron pallet in molds of bulrush braided. The brocciu is then doubled, like the cheeses. The liquid which drains from these molds, or which remains at the bottom of the paghjolu is called ciaba. The shepherds give it to the pigs and they also use it, when it is still almost boiling, to wash the utensils which were used to make the cheese and the brocciu. This is about all the advantage that can be drawn from the ciaba.
Brocciu can be eaten fresh, the same day it is made, or stored: in this case, it is salted, like a cheese. All the cheese and brocciu manufacturing operations take about two hours, to which are added the two hours necessary for the curdling of the milk, during which the shepherd takes care of the ripening: salting and washing of the cheeses. and brocciu already in the cellar.
The old shepherds say that it is necessary, to make a good Corsican cheese, to take it in hand (manighjà) at least every two or three days.
Corsican shepherds rarely do Butter although they know how to do it; traditional Corsican cuisine uses only olive oil and lard. We also consume, quite frequently, the curds and the cheese in all the states of its manufacture: fresh; unsalted; barely salty; “Done” (fattu), after 5 to 6 weeks; or old (vechju), after several months ofrefinement.
Corsican cheeses are varied: establishing a complete list would be difficult; one can at least distinguish, among the best known, the cheeses originating from Calenzana, Niolu, Venacu, which are all soft cheeses; Sartenais is a pressed cheese. Brocciu is known throughout Corsica; in the Sartenais we used to make a kind of quail called ricotta cheese that was produced by throwing a few large heated pebbles into a bucket of whole milk, until theboiling du Milk. When the milk has become lukewarm again, it is curdled, and the Corsican ricotta is obtained.
We cannot talk about the manufacture of cheese in Corsica without mentioning the place that the Roquefort cheese industry has taken in the pastoral economy since 1899. At present, 90% of sheep milk production, representing almost all of the herds (around five hundred) are processed in the six Roquefort cheese factories located in Corsica. Each year, they export 1200 to 1300 tonnes of cheese in fourmes to the continent, which will finish maturing in the cellars of Roquefort.
The milk collection period extends from October to the end of May. In June-July, in the mountains, the shepherds of the sheep make traditional cheese for their own consumption and sale in the local circuit. Corsican production also represents approximately 10% of the total milk production for the Roquefort.