The cheese was reborn for thousands of years, and the 80-year-old granny inherited the warm-blooded mountain people, and Monteborough cheese revived mountain life.

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Five hundred years ago, is that what Leonardo da Vinci ate?

Mont é bore is sliced longitudinally like the side of a staircase and tastes like a scale climb. Close to the nose, the smell of grass in the game of cattle and sheep is faint. The soft cheese, which is ripe for four months, melts like cream in the mouth, and the overflowing frankincense moistens the taste buds, like mushrooms that suck rich earthy air, and unexpected spicy taste to the throat, like a bright fireworks.

Leonardo da Vinci's love of cheese has slipped into the torrent of modernization

No wonder the only cheese recommended by Leonardo Da Vinci at an aristocratic wedding banquet is Montebre. When he was in charge of the wedding scene design in Gian Galeazzo Sforza, Archduke of Milan, at the end of the 15th century, he suggested that the banquet should not be without Monteboro cheese, such as the wedding cake has a delightful shape and a great flavor.

The Bobley Valley (Borbere) named after Monteborough cheese is located at the junction of Piemonte, Liguria and Lombardia in northwestern Italy, across the mountain top, with a vast sea on one side and a spacious plain on the other.

There is also some scenery in the winding valleys. The grass is lush and lush, herding cattle and sheep. For thousands of years, Monteborough made from raw milk by mountain people is for their own consumption. Although the number of transactions that flowed to the bazaar was very small, fame spread from the valley to the ears of the nobles. Monteborough made his first name in history in 1153: a Marquis specified that he wanted a hundred pieces of this unique cheese.

As the years go by, we can still enjoy Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa and watch him leave numerous notes, but the taste that once made him amazing has slipped into the torrent of modernization without even a sigh of regret. The golden age of Italy's economy in 1960 and 1970s was also a time when grazing withered. Mountain people went to the city one after another, and the last cheese shop closed in 1982. Monteborough became silent.

Cheese should have personality, know how to let go and let nature play (Photography / Zheng Jieyi)

"if you control everything, the cheese will have no personality."

Raw milk without skimming any fat is the key to Monteboro's unique flavor, Agarda explains. "even pasteurization removes both good and bad bacteria, and cheese is monotonous, like industrial cheese." The point is that raw milk must be obtained nearby, otherwise the risk of bad bacteria breeding will increase, so large factories that collect milk do need to be sterilized.

Raw milk retains the smell of grass chewed by cattle and sheep, some of which are unique to the valley and emit different flavors according to the seasons and changes in temperature and humidity, implicating the taste of cheese. More importantly, the interaction of natural good bacteria in raw milk determines the characteristics of cheese. Agarda pointed out the blind spot of modern people. "if you kill everything and control everything, cheese will have no personality." We must know how to let go and let nature play. "

"our Valley" rescues Montepoli, but also saves life in the mountains.

At this point in the field, Agada and Roberto could no longer put down the cheese they had recovered. After thinking about it for a long time and asking a lot of people, they decided to accompany Monteborough. Because of the emigration of the population and the endangered species of beans, grapes and apples traditionally cultivated and eaten in the Bobley Valley, Roberto and his friends formed a cooperative to defend local agriculture and diet, called "our Valley" (Valle Nostra). "there is no reason not to save Montepoli," Agarda said. "

If you don't do it, you won't stop doing it. When Agada was no longer a postman, Roberto resigned as a livestock technician at the Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Association (Coldiretti) to build his own local business under the name "our Valley" from scratch in 2002. In addition to Monteboro, there are more than a dozen kinds of cheese, and the garden also reproduces grape varieties Timorasso, Carla, and beans brought back by Columbus from South America. The farm is a living agricultural museum. (the article is not finished to be continued, please continue to read)

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