Ricotta Cheese Making Workshop

This last Thursday I was able to participate in an outing to a local Ricotta Cheese maker/farm.  The sheep are born and raised on the land there, they eat only what the farmer feeds them, and from their milk ricotta cheese is made.  Real ricotta cheese, not the tub of stuff you get from your grocery store.  Life changing, creamy, delicious, organic ricotta cheese.  We travelled about 45 minutes away by bus to a farm outside the town of Ramaca, west of the base. 

This particular cheese maker is famed throughout the land.  He has won many awards and takes great pride in what he does.  We saw most of the cheese making process, which is surprisingly quick.  Ricotta cheese translates to re-cooked in English.  Meaning, you guessed it, cooked twice.  It is believed that ricotta cheese has existed for hundreds, maybe thousands of years.  It is supposed to have originated in Sicily, and has certainly been perfected here.

There aren't the strict regulations here in Italy like you'd find in the States, when it comes to, well heck most things, but in particular food.  Which in my opinion makes food more daring and delicious.  Everything here, especially in Sicily, is more simple.  Dishes are complete with four to five ingredients, and not just complete but delicious.  In the grocery store you'll likely only find two fresh herbs: basil and Italian parsley.  Ingredients are fresh and simple, they are cooked together slowly until all the ingredients meld together into perfect harmony.

After watching the cheese making process and visiting the sheep we sat down to one of the best meals I've had here (yet).  The plates of food continued streaming from the kitchen until our bellies were full, and our appetites sated.  The plates were small, so we were able to sample a little bit of everything.  We started off with a sample of the fresh, warm ricotta (the consistency of very soft boiled egg whites).  Followed by dishes of quiche, thin slices of eggplant wrapped around potato and tomato, fresh bread, a delectable medley of green peppers, potatoes, onions, olives, and slivered almonds, and fried ricotta.  To finish off this meal we had the freshest cannolis I'll likely ever have, right from he source.  Cannolis are a desert with a fried shell (kind of in the shape of a closed taco shell) with sweetened ricotta on the inside.

The trip was great, I was glad that I went.  However, sometimes when you learn about how food is made or produced you often learn some facts that you wish you never knew, and know that you can never unlearn.  That for me was learning about rennet.  Don't worry, I'm not going to go into any details but if you're interested, there's always wikipedia.  Warning: just remember you can never go back....