Casolét della Val di Sole, Rabbi e Pejo

From the Latin caseulus, small cheese; casoletti was what they called the people of the villages in the Sole, Rabbi and Pejo valleys who made them. It was an autumn cheese, made once the herds were down off the alpeggi and the milk was drying up, generally at home and for the winter. It is small and tender and useful, of full-fat raw milk with the curd uncooked, and is now made all year and eaten fresh or half-aged. It has been thought less of than the great alpine cheeses largely because industrial dairies standardised a version of it from heat-treated or pasteurised pooled milk.