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Bitto PDO cheese

Description

As for all PDO products, the production process of Bitto must abide by specific regulations: no more than 10% of raw goat’s milk can be added to the cow’s whole raw milk used to make this cheese. The processing must be carried out on site within 30 minutes of milking. The finished product is a cooked-milk, semi-hard cheese that can also be hard if the seasoning is longer. Generally, it lasts for a minimum of 70 days, but the duration of the process can be extended to over 10 years. From the seventieth day, the Protection Consortium checks the product thoroughly and finally marks it. To obtain this particular cheese, cows must be fed with grass growing on the mountain pastures located within the production area, which can only be supplemented with 3 kg of dry matter per day (consisting of corn, barley, wheat, soy, molasses and shepherd’s salt).

Seasonality

Bitto PDO cheese is produced from 1 June to 30 September in the following mountain cities scattered in Upper Brembana Valley, in the Province of Bergamo: Averara, Carona, Cusio, Foppolo, Mezzoldo, Piazzatorre, Santa Brigida and Valleve.

Pairings

Bitto PDO cheese is excellent as a stand alone dish but can also be used as an ingredient in many recipes with a strong personality: crepes with porcini mushrooms, chestnut gnocchi dressed with Bitto sauce, salads, “margottini” (polenta flans with a heart of melted bitto).

Curiosities

It is said that the origins of Bitto date back to the Celts, an Indo-European people who settled in the Bergamo Alps around the III-IV century BCE. Skilled shepherds and cheesemakers, they discovered how to produce long-conservation cheese in order to preserve the nutritional properties of milk: the Celtic term “bitu” meant “ever-lasting”… and this is what Bitto does: it makes milk last forever, especially considering that it can be seasoned for over 10 years!The stream that crosses Valgerola and Albaredo Valleys, and then flows into the Adda river near Morbegno, is also called Bitto: perhaps because its waters are also eternal? The production area of this PDO cheese from Bergamo is very small, only comprising 8 towns and very few mountain pastures out of the over 250 working ones.

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