Up in the Benevento hinterland, among the Matese, Mutri and neighbouring highlands and the mountain districts of Cusano, dairies for this mixed-milk hard cheese are usually set in the hills themselves, often above a thousand metres. That altitude is not scenery: it is the working address of a cheese made from sheep, goat and cow milk, as recorded by Regione Campania.
Work begins with milk still warm from the animals. After a short pause the whey is drawn off, and the curd is broken with a long-handled ladle of beech or maple — a slow, attentive motion that leaves the mass ready for the traditional wicker fuscelle where it is set to drain and take shape.
Pressed into pieces of one to two kilograms, the cheese is salted on both faces with ordinary food salt, or else plunged into brine. Time then writes on the rind: a pale hazelnut shade that turns yellowish and darkens as ageing advances, a quiet map of how long the wheel has waited in the mountain air.