Caciocavallo

Caciocavallo is a type of pasta filata ('stretched-curd') cheese made out of sheep's or cow's milk. It is produced throughout southern Italy, particularly in the Apennine Mountains and in the Gargano peninsula. Shaped like a teardrop, it is similar in taste to the aged southern Italian provolone cheese, with a hard edible rind.

Etymology
The Italian name of the cheese caciocavallo literally means 'horse cheese' and it is generally thought that the name derives from the fact that two cheese forms are always bound together with rope and then left to mature by placing them a cavallo, i.e. straddling, upon a horizontal stick or branch.

History
A sort of caciocavallo was first mentioned around 500 BC by Hippocrates, emphasising the "Greeks' cleverness in making cheese". Columella in his classic treatise on agriculture, De re rustica (35–45 CE), described precisely the methods used in its preparation, making it one of the oldest known cheeses in the world. Types of cheese with names similar to caciocavallo are common throughout the Balkans and southern Italy. In Sicily, the Ragusano DOP, known locally as caciocavallo ragusano had to drop the denomination "caciocavallo" in order to get DOP status.

Types
Many different types of caciocavallo exist in Italy, and several are recognised as prodotto agroalimentare tradizionale (PAT), such as caciocavallo podolico (produced using only milk from the Podolica cattle breed), caciocavallo di Castelfranco (from Miscano Valley in the Apennines) or caciocavallo di Godrano (often called caciocavallo palermitano).

Protected geographical status (PDO)
Caciocavallo silano is made with cow's milk in designated areas of southern Italy, in the regions of Basilicata, Calabria, Campania, Molise and Apulia, and gained protected geographical status in 1993.

In other languages
kaçkavall   ; kačkavalj   ; Bulgarian: кашкавал, kashkaval   ; cașcaval   ; качкаваљ/kačkavalj   ; caciucavaddu   ; kaşkaval   /kaşar    ; קשקבל, kashkaval   ; κασκαβάλι, kaskavali  , κασέρι, kaseri    ; قشقوان, kashkawane.

Although the names are similar, each of these local speciality cheeses is different from both caciocavallo silano and each other.