Pecorino

Made with cows' milk instead of the traditional sheep milk, this cheese is very mild and combines well in sandwiches and in cooking. Good with fruit. Try serving it with thin slices of pineapple. 

This cheese is overdue for a name change. It started life as a recipe for Pecorino, but it has been adapted and changed several times so that it has become quite a different cheese. For one thing, it isn't as salty as its Italian version. Our Japanese customers prefer it with less salt and, in any case, salt is something that's very easy to add, but quite difficult to take out.

But the most important reason for wanting to rename it is that the name doesn't fit. "Pecora" means "sheep" in Italian. But we don't use sheep milk in this cheese. We use milk from the cows on our dairy farm. I thought of calling it "vaccarino" as the Italian for cow is "vacca," but if we put that in Katakana, it means "stoopid!"

It is a very suitable cheese for Okinawa, however. Most Italian Pecorino is produced on the island of Sardinia, where the climate is very similar to Okinawa.

In Sardinia, an island of Southern Italy, the climate is Mediterranean, with mild, fairly rainy winters and hot, sunny summers, a bit sultry but tempered by sea breezes. At sea level, the daily average temperature ranges from about 10 °C (50 °F) in January and February to 24/25 °C (75/77 °F) in July and August. (Wikipedia)

In any case, whatever you want to call it, this is a beautiful cheese. Semi hard, mild, almost like a Cheddar. This cheese is everybody's friend and goes well with almost anything. Put it in a sandwich with jam ("jelly" to Americans), with ham, it's great in a sauce or in fondue, or just by itself as a snack. We even smoke this cheese to make our best selling Kohaku smoked cheese.