Axridda di Escalaplano

There is no other cheese like it, and it belongs to one town: Escalaplano, just over 2,000 people on the arid plateaus between the Flumendosa and the Flumineddu in the southeastern interior, country once known for cork. Axridda is the Sardinian for clay, and the cheese is sealed in it. Sardinian summers are long, dry and hot, and cheese matured in natural cellars did not always survive them; the families here worked out that clay would carry it through.