Cheese = milk, territory and sacrifice

by Flavia Rendina 02/21/19 |

On Saturday and Sunday, February 23 and 24, Rome will host Formaticum, the first exhibition-market of Italian dairy rarities aimed at rediscovering the meaning of cheese.

At a time when farmers are throwing away their milk in protest over low production prices, we need to ask ourselves what cheese means for us. What do we expect in regard to its taste? Its price? And, above all, have we ever stopped to think what is behind that standardized product, wrapped in plastic and maybe already sliced, which we find in supermarkets? In other words, do we really know what cheese is?

Vincenzo Mancino is a recognized, leading expert of the dairy sector who is head of the DOL (Of Lazio Origin) association and, more recently, the ProLoco DOL Trastevere restaurant. According to him, “cheese is territory, the final product of a combination of history, culture, tradition, craftsmanship and the environment that we define, by convention, with lines on a map.” Cheese is thus on the same level as other traditional craft products, the last link in a chain that runs through the historic-cultural-organic reality of a place, much like what terroir is for wine. This “place” is inhabited by farmers and their livestock which are united by an unbreakable symbiosis. “For a farmer, the animal is an integral part of their own life. It does not take any holidays or sick days and needs to be nourished and cared for on a daily basis. This is a job that knows no timetable and has no price,” Vincenzo Mancino underscored. It was for this reason that the current farmer protests on Sardinia, he added, have been brewing for at least 40 years. “There are some horrifying dynamics that need to be addressed because the situation in agriculture is composed of both productive and transformation realities with the latter acting as a go-between with major distribution organs. These two players are currently at loggerheads and they must find a way to restore effective coexistence in a way that offers greater protection for an ancient craft that is demanding and full of cultural importance like that of a farmer”.

It was for this reason that Mancino and Le Pecore Nera Editore, a publishing house active in the wine and food sector, have come up with an idea for an event that showcases cheese and brings into direct contact small Italian cheese producers and consumers. The event, Formaticum, is an exhibition-market of Italian cheese rarites that is sponsored by the Region of Lazio and which will be staged Saturday and Sunday, February 23 and 24, at the WeGil space in the heart of Rome’s Trastevere neighborhood. Taking part will be over 30 farmer-producers from all over Italy who work with only one kind of milk (sheep, goat or cow) and who will be able to promote and sell their products without any middlemen to a public of cheese lovers and sector operators. During the two-day event, there will also be seminars and tasting courses promoted by ONAF (National Cheese Tasters’ Organization) to enhance the general public’s knowledge of dairy products.

During the presentation of the event, we were able to get to know two producers who will be key players at the trade fair and their personal histories inspired and moved all of us present. One was 30-year-old Marco Bergognoni who, last December 15, opened his artisanal cheese factory, La Piccola Formaggeria, in Viterbo where he produces soft sheep cheeses that are little known even in Lazio. “I am not a farmer,” he told us, “but I know all the effort they make and so for quality milk I pay them 91 euro cents a liter. And while this may be a good price, it is never the just one given the sacrifices that sheep farmers have to make which has no price”.

The second story was both extreme and romantic and was that of Stefano Tozzi and his Hungarian partner Zsuzsanna Komaromi. They are goat herders who recently also became cheese producers at their Le Caprette di Zsù farm between Altipiani di Arcinazzo and Mariano Equo, in the Aniene Valley. “Zsu and I met on the Camino de Santiago (the Way of St James) pilgrimage,“ Stefano told us, “and we decided to make our dream of raising goats come true. It was a radical choice for us. Zsu was an engineer in Hungary but left everything to move here and dedicate herself to the goats, while I, for the time being, divide my time between the farm and my job as a nurse in the coronary care unit at Rome’s Bambino Gesù children’s hospital”. Formaticum is dedicated to people like these, who have decided to rediscover one of man’s oldest activities and return to nature and the land. We hope it will serve to draw attention to one of Italy’s most important and demanding sectors in the hope that milk will no longer have to be thrown away to make a point.

FORMATICUM