Lydia Burns is one of several fromagers at Fox & Obel, and when I stopped in a few weeks ago to ask her about her favorite cheese, she went straight for the Caprino Castagno, a product of Italy that is currently mentioned almost exclusively on Italian sites.
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Wrapped in chestnut leaves, and a little oozy around the edges, Caprino Castagno is made by affineur Gianni Cora in the Piedmont, a northern state of Italy surrounded by the Alps and centered in Turin. It is one intense slab of cultured goat milk, extremely creamy and dense, with the weight and spread of butter and the acute tang of Roquefort. This is not a cheese for dilettantes.
In response to Burns’ judgement that the blue blooms were no problem, Catherine Lambrecht, a former President of the Illinois Mycological Association, responded “I wouldn’t eat it. There is a difference between intentionally introduced fungi/molds and those who popped up from the atmosphere. You have no idea what you may be consuming.”
