Caciocavallo

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Caciocavallo is a stretched-curd cheese from southern Italy, made with sheep's or cow's milk and shaped like a teardrop. It has a hard edible rind and tastes much like the aged provolone of the same region.

Key Facts

Country of Origin	Italy
Specific Origin	Apennine mountain range
Milk Type	Cow's milk
Rind	Smooth, thickens with age
Texture	Firm to semihard, chewy to crumbly
Flavor	Slightly sweet to sharp, piquant, complex
Aroma	Earthy
Colors	White to rich yellow
Forms	Teardrop or gourd
Age	2 to 12 months, up to 5 years

What is Caciocavallo Cheese?

Caciocavallo is a pasta filata cheese, which means the curd is stretched before shaping. It is made from sheep's or cow's milk and produced throughout southern Italy, above all in the Apennine Mountains and on the Gargano peninsula.

The Italian name means horse cheese. Two forms are tied together with rope and left to mature a cavallo, straddling a horizontal stick or branch.

It ranks among the oldest cheeses on record. Hippocrates, who lived from roughly 460 to 370 BC, is thought to have mentioned a sort of caciocavallo while praising the cleverness of the Greeks at making cheese. Columella described the preparation method precisely in De re rustica, written between 35 and 45 CE.

Each form is shaped like a teardrop and has a hard rind that can be eaten. The flavor is similar to aged southern Italian provolone.

Italy makes many versions, several recognised as prodotti agroalimentari tradizionali. Caciocavallo podolico uses milk from Podolica cattle only, caciocavallo di Castelfranco comes from the Miscano Valley in the Apennines, and caciocavallo di Godrano also goes by caciocavallo palermitano. Caciocavallo silano, a cow's milk cheese from designated areas of Basilicata, Calabria, Campania, Molise and Apulia, gained protected geographical status in 1993. In Sicily, Ragusano DOP, known locally as caciocavallo ragusano, had to drop the caciocavallo denomination to win DOP status.