Provolone cheese

Italy has always been famous for its distinctive culinary traditions. Pizza, pasta, ravioli, as well as pasta and many other dishes of the Italian national cuisine and love all over the world. However, Italy is famous not only for its culinary masters. Many famous varieties of cheeses have long been produced in the country. Moreover, most of them have become a real classic of world cheese making. For example, Provolone or Provolone cheese.

Hard Italian cheese, which is made from whole cow's milk of the best quality. Taste, aroma, color, as well as consumer characteristics of the product depend only on the type of provolone cheese. Usually provolone cheese has a soft and tender taste, as well as a refined and pronounced cheese aroma. However, there is also a sharper and more tasteful provolone cheese. It all depends, as in most cases, on the aging time of the product.

Real foodies and connoisseurs know that only over time will elite varieties of cheese transform the fullness of taste and aroma. Moreover, the aging time of some cheese varieties can reach up to 2 years. Decent time, isn't it? There are three main types of provolone cheese:



sweet cheese or provolone dolce, usually served as a dessert or light aperitif.

salted provolone piccante is most often used as an alternative to another equally well-known Italian parmesan cheese.

smoked provolone cheese or provolone affumate enjoys extraordinary popularity and love from the people of Italy themselves.



The first provolone cheese was produced in the Italian province of Basilicata. Since the end of the 19th century, the production of provolone cheese on an industrial scale has been engaged in other Italian provinces. However, in modern times, provolone cheese is produced for the most part in the province of Lombardy. It is noteworthy that the technology of producing provolone cheese is not much different from the method of making young Italian mozzarella cheese.

Even with the initial similarity of production processes, the result is two completely different food products and not only in their appearance, as well as in taste, aroma and other consumer characteristics. For the production of provolone cheese, a special lipase enzyme is added to cow's milk. This substance is isolated from the goat or calf stomach. After the enzyme enters the milk, the mixture is heated to a temperature in the 90S.

Milk is rolled up, and the resulting cheese mass is specially treated. As a result, an elastic milk clot is obtained, which is lowered into the bathroom with salty sea water in order to give the final products a characteristic taste and aroma. At the final stage, provolone cheese is pulled with twine and suspended for further ripening.