© Lesia Lepori Fotolia

© Pascal Cocco Fotolia

© Pascal Cocco Fotolia

© Dean Moriarty Fotolia

© Jerome Bono Fotolia

The temperature rises about 30 degrees more and the mixture flocculates. It’s time to remove the solids formed on the surface - by hand with a skimmer - then pour them into a “fattoghje,” a “pinsutu” version of the cheese strainer. Simple? Not really. For this recipe one must add a final ingredient, experience. The cheese maker regulates the heat instinctively in order to remove the brocciu from the vat at just the right temperature. A few degrees more, a few seconds too long and the cheese is too dry. But that, of course, never happens !

Brocciu can be used in many recipes. Savory lasagnas, omelets (with fresh mint), migliacciu (wheat cakes, specialties from Upper Corsica), or sweet donuts, fruit mousse, falcullele (from Corte), ambrucciata (a tart from Ajaccio) and fiadone (a specialty from Bastia)… In “La Cuisine au Brocciu” (Cooking with Brocciu), published by Albiana, Marie-Claire Biancarelli presents 56 different ideas including soups, pasta, salad, meatballs, stuffed vegetables, and cakes…

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In fact it’s the only cheese with the Protected Designation of Origin Label made from a milk by-product, the whey. This is the liquid that remains when the curds, the solid component from which more “noble” cheeses are made, have been extracted. In ancestral times, the Corsican shepherds, concerned to not waste a drop of milk, developed a recipe to put this to good use. The recipe has been handed down through centuries, practically unchanged.

While the curds are used to make tommes, the whey is recuperated in a large vat and heated over flames. At about 50°, a touch of salt and milk are added, at a maximum percentage of 25% volume.

Protected since 1998 by the Designation of Origin Label, brocciu over time has grown into one of the treasures of the Corsican land. Indeed, its renown crossed the frontiers of the island a long time ago. “I export as far as Japan,” confides the Corsican cheese maker. Today this international fame has turned this goat cheese into the “cash cow” of a whole segment of the Corsican agricultural economy. A curious destiny for a product born out of austerity and humility.

Originally, the brocciu was the cheese of the modest, of those who, because they lacked almost everything, knew how to get the best from the little they had.

institution in the Bastia region – the difference is there right from the beginning: “It has to do with the quality of the milk of the Corsican ewes, an entirely separate race shaped by the harsh mountains conditions.” These small and hardy animals produce little milk-up to four times less that the best dairy breeds. But they make great milk! A result of feeding essentially on pasture, the milk has character that you can taste. “And what's more, it’s very rich in protein and fat, which is a particularity that results in our cheeses’ unrivaled creaminess.”

Ah, the brocciu! "He who hasn't tasted it doesn't know the island," wrote Caliban back in his day, a man of letters well known in Paris during the Belle Epoque. More than just a fromage, it’s a symbol of identity. Every Corsican will tell you, “There's nothing like it.” The brousse from Provence or the Italian ricotta, its closest cousins, pale in comparison to this perfectly rich and melting cheese.

The Islanders secret? For Michel Pierucci, general director of his eponymous cheese factory – a dynamic century-old

By Jerôme Dumur - Photos DR / Fotolia - January 21, 2012

For the last few weeks at the most, the ewes in Corsica are again filling buckets with their milk. But this delicious spring will dry up as summer approaches. However before then, the local cheese makers will have extracted its essence, producing perfectly ripe tommes and the legendary brocciu.

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