The Unconventional Guide To Ricotta Cheese

During this past season on a Costa Brava bike tour, we had a lovely dinner near Empuries. Oddly enough, we were sitting in a Spanish restaurant when the conversation turned Italian. Our Chicago guests were of Italian descent and they were sitting in front of one, particular, Sicilian native.

We discussed everything that was old-world food and wine: tasty Nero d’Avola and lovely paccheri alla ragusana; focaccia and arancini; Ragusano DOP and fresh ricotta cheese. All the components you find on our fabulous and historicaly cultural La Bella Sicilia departure.

When we touched upon the ricotta cheese, there was a heated disagreement.

Our friends insisted the cheese was made like mozzarella: from a boiling mass of cow’s milk. It would curdle to the top. Once skimmed and drained, it produced delicious ricotta cheese.

“That cheese,” I replied, “is primo sale. It isn’t ricotta.”

Discussion ensued and long-held family beliefs were broken.

Ricotta cheese has a fascinating history to it. And although you may think it’s “just cheese,” – actually – it isn’t. The cultural connections to this creamy delight may surprise you. For starters, if we want to know how to make ricotta cheese, it helps to know a little Italian.

WHAT’S IN A NAME:

The Italian word for “to cook” is cucinare.  However, its past participle is irregular. When something is “cooked” it is cotto. If the noun happens to be feminine it is cotta.

To repeat an action in Italian, we use the suffix ri-. For example, if I “re-charge” something, I’d say ri-caricare; If I “re-new” a subscription, I would ri-nnovare (en-dashes are mine for phonetics). We see this similar pattern in the popular Tuscan dish of ribollita. Bollita comes from bollire (to boil). Thus anything I find in ribollita  – according to tradition – should be boiled again. That is exactly what ribollita is: a poor dish where peasants would re-boil old vegetables, stale bread and beans (anything they could find) and make a meal. Nothing ever went to waste.

We need to consider this grammatical exercise when we look at ri-cotta.

TURN UP THE HEAT:

A demonstration of ricotta cheese making opens the eyes (and the palate) to the unique way our ancestors made cheese.

In Italy (primarily Sicily) local massari use ewe’s milk and cow milk to produce ricotta. They typically prefer sheep’s milk because it has more fat and protein and a richer, creamier taste. The dairy farmers pour the milk into a large cauldron and set over a hot flame.

As the milk warms, they add some starter whey protein to catalyse the curdling. According to the book Cheese: Chemistry, Physics and Microbiology, the heat and protein induce coagulation of the casein. As soon as the curd forms and floats to the top, they turn the heat off. As the mixture cools, more and more casein coagulates and rises to the surface.

DON’T GET FOOLED AGAIN:

A good cheese-maker stirs the cauldron from the sides to the center “rolling” the curd, helping it bind. All the curd will have formed in about 30 minutes. Then the process of “skimming” takes place: perforated canisters allow the liquid to drain yet hold the cheese inside. Traditionally local cheese makers used bamboo reeds with slits cut out on the sides. Today they are simple plastic containers.

But wait: this isn’t ricotta. We call this primo sale. It is a light and delicate pasteurized sheep’s cheese.

Sometimes the locals will add peppercorns to it, or pimentos. It is great far an apéritif or a light snack.
But this isn’t ricotta. We’ve only partially recovered the whey protein from the goat’s milk.

To make ricotta and recover the rest of the protein, we go back to the kitchen, and cook the milk again.

THE HEAT IS ON (AGAIN):

The Chemistry and Physics of Cheese tells to heat up the liquid mixture in the cauldron again; it is re-boiled. This time it will take anywhere from another 45 minutes to one hour to get the remaining whey protein to coagulate and float to the top.

At 185˚ for an hour, the cheese maker must stir constantly. It is a hot and sweaty job so you are better off stirring in the morning. If you have ever gone to your local cheese shop in Italy and tried to get local ricotta cheese after 12pm, you’ll be out of luck. It is too hot to hang over a hot cauldron during the noontime hours (and the locals know how good warm ricotta cheese is in the morning!).

Imagine how delicious warm ricotta cheese is at 10 o’clock in the morning. Nothing tastes better on bread with a little local honey. There are several ricotta makers still active around Sicily, especially Vizzini. And if the process itself doesn’t amaze our guests, they amazed by the flavor. You can’t find anything else like it in the world. Not even in America.

THIS IS NOT YOUR GRANDSON’S CHEESE:

According to the Oxford Companion to Cheese, sweet whey and whole cow’s milk are used to make ricotta cheese in America. Apparently, there are larger cheese-making factories that may include preservatives to maintain ricotta’s shelf life (Sicilian ricotta can’t stay longer than 2 days in the fridge). We’ve seen some ricotta brands in the United States that have a month expiration date. That doesn’t sound good.

Yet there is debate whether ricotta cheese is actually a “cheese.” According to some research, ricotta is a dairy product but not a cheese. It is a by-product of the making of primo sale. “Cheese” is primarily the coagulation of the milk protein casein. Ricotta – as we have explained – is the coagulation of the whey protein. In fact, some recent research has explained how good whey protein is for health and muscle growth.  But this is a fact that even the ancients knew of.

RICOTTA’S “SEXY” SIDE:

In the book The Sex of Men in Pre-modern Europe, Patricia Simons presents another argument for the “power” of this humble cheese. Producing ricotta is an ancient craft, dating back to the Bronze Age on the Italic Peninsula. Because of this ancient tradition, it has been around in cuisine – and in the local culture – for thousands of years. As we have shown, the making of ricotta is the art of getting the milk hot enough to the point where the whey floats on the surface; where the cream rises to the top. This idea became a sexual innuendo during most of the renaissance.

Simons argues that ever since the 1430s, ricotta has been used as a metaphor for sexual virility. It’s connotations with “lusty indulgence” is most clearly understood in Vincenzo Campi’s masterpiece Buffonaria, “The Ricotta Eaters.” In this painting, Simons states, the protagonists are depictions of the Commedia dell’Arte characters and the symbolism of their actions is blatantly clear.

The woman on the far right is a prostitute and the men all vulgar farmers. The figures in the painting look out at the viewer, as a “tongue-in-cheek” provocation of ricotta’s sexual connotation. Even the spoons in the painting are sexual innuendos. One man holds a ladle signifying the one who “has had too much” to where his mouth is over-flowing.

It’s amazing how a simple cheese can have such a twisted history to it. However, an understanding of ricotta’s lusty past sheds new light on the cannolo, but we’ll save that for another story.

Want to taste the real ricotta for yourself? Check out our La Bella Sicilia bike tour  and get in touch with our office. We’ll get you to see the big cheese.