'It's not a job, it's a disease': Italy's rebel cheesemaker chooses tradition over innovation

“I really feel far more comfy right here below the rain, moist and chilly than in an residence within the metropolis," says Alfio Sassella, a conventional cheese producer within the Italian Alps. "I’ve all the time stated, this isn't a job, it’s a illness. When it will get you, you go together with it."

Alfio is considered one of a small variety of producers of ‘Storico Ribelle’, a cheese made completely with the milk of conventional alpine cattle. All of the milking, cooking and preparation is finished by hand, simply because it was 200 years in the past. Simply 10 producers proceed to make it on this conventional means.

"Our major attribute is that we’ve all the time rejected innovation ... We do not use synthetic components within the milk. Milk, salt, rennet and that is it."

Insurgent cheesemakers

The 'Storico Ribelle' cheese was initially recognized below the identify 'Bitto Storico', a famend model produced in Italy's Lombard Alps, north of Milan.

The unique Bitto cheese has a PDO standing (Protected Designation of Origin) which suggests its producers have to be from an outlined geographical space and abide by a set of manufacturing guidelines with the intention to obtain the certificates.

Normally, this standing is an assurance of high quality however a small variety of Bitto producers, together with Alfio, disagreed with choices made by the PDO Bitto consortium and give up the group. Because of this, they're now not allowed to make use of the 'Bitto' identify for his or her cheese.

"We left the PDO 10 or 12 years in the past," explains Alfio. "To place it merely, the certification for the PDO comes by way of an workplace, by way of a certifying physique that usually is aware of little or no about my work and involves certify that what I do respects laws established by others ... Our cheese is protected by the Gradual Meals Presidium ... I’m the one who solutions, not some summary, far-off entity."

Rural Rebels is a sequence that brings you beautiful tales of foods and drinks producers round Europe who're rejecting industrial agriculture and fashionable life and as an alternative embracing conventional and sustainable practices. Watch the complete episode by clicking on the video participant above.