Not everyone of us can go to *Cheese* this year. So for those who have to stay at home, here some memories of cheese 2019. Some things I am sure have changed, others are still the same. Enjoy the read and let´s plan a visit for 2023!
Cheese 2019 – I am sure that as a fellow cheese lover going to the bi-annual festival “Cheese” in Bra, Italy is for you, as it was for me, a long-held dream. With 300.000 visitors in 2017 and over 400 exhibitors this year it is one of the biggest and also most important cheese festivals in the world. I finally got to go this year, and for those of you who couldn’t make it I put together some impressions from my visit.
It´’s not a secret that Gustav and I are huge fans of Italian cheeses and traveling to Italy is a regular must. This time we were in the Piedmont and found our way to Giaveno about an hour West of Turin where we stopped by *Azienda Agricola Fratelli Lussiana*.
The little towns of Giaveno and Coazze in the Sangone valley are home to Slow food family member Cevrin di Coazze which is only produced by a handful of cheese makers.
*Cevrin* in the local dialect means a mix of cow’s and goat’s milk cheese and * Cevrin di Coazze * is indeed exactely that. A mix of goat´’s and cow’s milk with a goat´’s milk proportion of at least 40%.
The goats of Lussiana family are Chamois Coloured Goats from the Piedmont valleys (Camosciata delle valli piemontesi), which don’t produce as much milk as eg. the white Saanen breed but are robust and well adapted to the mountainous territory they live in. The cows are of the autochtone and sturdy Barà cattle breed which is similar to the better known Pustertaler, derives from the valleys around Cuneo and Turin and is unfortunately in danger of going extinct.
With production time limited from March to November when the animals are out in pasture ,dry salted, *Cevrin di Coazze*can be made from raw, thermized as well as pasteurized milk and has a minimum age of 90 days. The evening milk of the cows is completed with the morning batch of the goats and in our case coagulated with the help of calves rennet.
*Cevrin* has an unpressed and semisoft paste that melts hesitantly midst its regular eyes and releases notes of spicy mushroom and lactic, nutty pastures, all of which make you feel history, valleys and animals alike. We paired our * Cevrin di Coazze * with a Barbera d’Asti that manages to cut through the spicyness and brings out the milder more buttery sides of todays guest of honor.
Gustav rates our travel encounter a happy 12/10 and says next time he will also keep an eye on people and landscape and not just the cheese.
Last fall for a long weekend we drove to the Veneto, namely into the area of Conegliano. Our main focus, I have to admit was to stack up on as many bottles of Prosecco as Signor Rossi can carry but Gustav wouldn´t be *team formaggiastic* if he wouldn´t have pointed out some cheese hot spots for us.
So here, an excursion for mind and heart and a short idea post for your future travels; two cheese places we went to and happily recommend for your next trip to “Prosecco Land”.
Some of you might have followed our Instagram updates and may also have seen some of our interviews with Italian farmers and cheesemakers prior to this year’s event of the *open days of artisanal cheese dairy farms of Italy*- *CASEIFICI AGRICOLI OPENDAY*
**Due to the current situation we unfortunately will have to cancel our October Trip to Barcelona and move it to spring next year. The dates will be announced in time on our website as well as our social channels.
For everyone who is in the area before then make sure to check out the Aborigens website for current events and happenings. They will make sure you have an unforgettable time with delicious foods and drinks!
To get an idea of next years travel read below how it was set up for this October**
Summer arrived and it seems like a lot of us this year will either not go on vacation at all or will choose a destination nearby. But hey – this is not the end of the world and many great things can be discovered just around the corner.
Usually in spring when days get warmer Bavarians swarm to the beergardens to enjoy the bavarian signature cheese Obazda and being from Munich of course one of those people is me. But since life right now is a little different Gustav and I want to give you a home recipe and repost a memory from 2018 where we went to Munich, capital of Bavaria and herewith of the region the Obazda was granted PGI certification in 2015.
Just a few days ago Gustav and presented a cheese from Georgia that came to us via secret paths. But unfortunately not all of our cheese messengers are equally successful and sometimes cheeses get confiscated – or, as we think, rapidly eaten up – by overly correct border controls.
For those of you who follow my Instagram account it is no news, but #formaggiastic went Cheese Berlin – the annual Cheese Festival taking place at Markthalle Neun in Berlin Kreuzberg. Spass!
