Italico Eridano

The whole-milk cow’s cheese called Italico, but more often Eridano (the classical name of the Po River), is a mirror of the history of Northern Italian cheeses.
To produce cheese, it is essential to have milk, and to have milk, you need well-fed animals.
To have forage, you need pasture, and for pasture you need abundant, rich land.
All these elements were historically scarce in the orographic area that would give birth to what we now call Italy.
Mountains with perennial snow in the north, a mountain ridge from north to south, and marshy or arid lands in the coastal areas that almost entirely surround the territory.
This is the reason why goats and sheep have historically thrived in our country, small animals with few needs and a strong spirit of adaptation.
There is only one triangle of land suitable for supporting pastures for cattle and cereal crops for humans: the Po Valley, the land crossed by the Po River (the Eridanus, precisely).
When the Cistercian monks irrigated it around the year 1000, it became possible for humans and animals to coexist and start significant production of cow’s milk cheeses.
With appropriate technological adaptations (partial skimming of the milk and cooking of the curd), the Italico/Eridano typology leads to the Parmigiano-Reggiano typology.
Through the precious and fateful “distraction” of the cheesemaker in love, the technology that led to the Gorgonzola typology was developed.
Is there anything else we need to add to enhance the dairy archetype represented by Eridanus?
“Italico” is a generic name that designates a category of soft, full-fat cheeses.
Sometimes they are marketed under fictitious names.
These are slightly aged products, with a soft texture and a fresh flavour.
Originally, they were inspired by French cheeses, the so-called “abbey cheeses”, created in some monasteries across the Alps.