How Italian Gorgonzola Cheese Is Made Regional Eats Food

[Music] Hi guys, this is Claudia and today I'm going to take you to see how Gorgon Zola Cheese is made in Italy.

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[Music] Hi guys, this is Claudia and today I'm going to take you to see how Gorgon Zola Cheese is made in Italy.

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I'm in Trecate in the Piedmont region, which is one of the only two Italian regions together with Lombardy, where this cheese can be made.

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And this is one of the only 29 diaries in the world that can produce this cheese.

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[Music] The Gorgon Zola industry is worth over 800 million dollars.

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Almost 5 million wheels are produced each year. And production is confined to this small area only.

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Gorgon Zola Cheese has a centuries old history and it is still done using the same ingredients and techniques that it was decades ago.

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Even machines like this one, use sister the curd, are decided to recreate human movements as gently as possible.

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It's beautiful marble interior is given by Penicillium Roqueforti, a fungus that is used to ripen the cheese.

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And this is why in fact blue cheese is co-so.

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In the beginning of the Gorgon Zola it's a cheese that is made in a saucepan, so it's a cheesepan that is left on the trees.

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The families of Bergamini, those who were like the pastors, were doing the pecoras.

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Bergamini did it with the cows. So they brought the cows to the school, essentially.

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My family is a Bergamini family and this family that started to transform the milk they were carrying in formats.

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In our case they made a shape of a tree, so in what way? After making it, I was supposed to have made the shape of a tree, where the cows were born in this way.

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They were old and natural, so the grown ones were natural.

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Then they were the houses, which were construction, especially the ones that were built under the ground in the building.

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The cow was successfully produced by the Gorgon Zola, because the plants in the Pionura Padana were developed, so the trade was increased.

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They were also available in Pionura Padana. Gorgon Zola cheese is made with unskilled, pasteurized cow's milk, and it can either be mild and creamy or hard and pungent.

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Depending on how long it is left to age. The two kinds are easily distinguishable by the color of their veins, blue in the creamy and green in the pungent.

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The Gorgon Zola and also the formats of blue are very special, because it is not a mold, it is a very stagionated mold.

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All the two things are more of the variety of the blue muffle, the red and white penicillium, which is another, let's say, a portator of different flavors.

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It is a way that has many structures, other than visives, it is also visibly very beautiful.

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Penicillium red and white, the fungus, is added to milk at the very beginning of the production process, in a big cauldron together with enzymes, granite and yeast.

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In about 20 minutes, milk becomes curd, it can be transferred into molds.

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Each wheel is marked with a dairys identification number.

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You can see number 6 here, that's cassé fichou-sien vernitzi, we visited.

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Here, between 450 and 500 Gorgon Zola wheels are made every day.

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To help the curd settle, wheels are turned four times, then left to rest overnight.

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Then, they are salted a couple of times.

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At this stage, they weigh about 18 kilos, that's 40 pounds, but this number will drop to 12 kilos, 26 pounds, at the end of the aging process, as excess weight is released.

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The soul team rooms are warm and humid. This is also to favor the activity of the east, inside the cheese.

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Mild Gorgon Zola wheels stay for three days and hard Gorgon Zola for five.

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Then, they are moved again into a cold room, where they are punctured 100 times on each side.

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This is to allow oxygen into the cheese, for it to grow its signature blue veins.

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Gorgon Zola is at cassé fichou-sien vernitzi are punctured with a machine, but some other in-house cheeses are still punctured by a hand.

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After this step, the cheeses left to age.

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It takes two months for the blue creamy Gorgon Zola, and three months for the green pungent one.

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The color difference is pretty evident, but do they really taste different? The dairy set up a little cheese tasting so that we could try them both.

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That's amazing, my god. It almost doesn't feel like you bite it into cheese, it just smells in your mouth.

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Oh wow, they are so different, it's crazy.

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You know, I mean you can tell from the texture that this is harder and this is creamy, but this is much stronger as a stronger bite.

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After trying Gorgon Zola on its own, Inel's chef, Jean-Pierre Cravero wanted to show me how versatile the cheese is, so he cooked some squid and spaghetti with both cheeses.

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Your pasta.

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Wow, the cheese tastes very strong, but I think the combination with the squid ink is great.

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I mean, color wise of course is amazing because black and white is like opposite, right? So you can really see the cheese in there and it's sort of creamy texture on the pasta.

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Gorgon Zola cheese is protected by the European Union by the protected designation of origin scheme.

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This means that any cheese labeled Gorgon Zola must meet a particular set of standards and is subject to quality checks.

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It's also wrapped in a signature aluminum foil. It's a kind of a gas that is born in this territory, and we generally call it a trinovara and verga.

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This territory is a kind of content, so it's a kind of a gas that is born in that territory, which is the source of that territory, let's say we have shown it to you by magic, that here are 7 kilometers.

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All the steel that is from that side must be certified by Gorgon Zola production.

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All the standards must be respected by the consortium.

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There will be a number of boxes that you should first have on your own, in the case of the product.

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And other days of the day of the season, for example, there will also be a form of final form when it will be completely stagnated.

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The aluminum is flat, this is the way in which everything can be settled and a producer must follow to make Gorgon Zola Dopp.

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In most cases, there are family stories that have not always been produced, so they are originated in these territories.