Casuforte di Statigliano — also known as Cacioforte or Casoforte — begins with goat’s milk still warm from the milking. Artisan rennet from a kid sets that milk at ordinary room warmth, so the curd forms without haste or heat. The gesture is small and exact: fresh milk, kid-goat coagulant, ambient air. What follows is a firm, forthright cheese whose name already hints at strength rather than mildness.
Travel writing on Roman gastronomy has long named it, and the same record places its testimony as far back as the pre-Roman age. That deep citation does not mean the cheese is still common. Regione Campania notes that making cacioforte has almost disappeared today, so the old names now describe a craft hanging by a thread rather than a pantry staple. Appetite here is also a kind of attention: to goat milk, to kid rennet, and to a product that history remembered more steadily than kitchens have.