The Shepherd’s Cheese

Shepherds and their flocks have dotted the mountains of Sicily since before history was written. “The Odyssey” has the first literary reference to a Sicilian shepherd in the story of the Cyclops: Homer writes that when Odysseus first spied the ogre, this creature was sitting among his sheep eating fresh ewes’ milk ricotta from a straw basket. The Cyclops’ flock was, so to speak, the mythological ancestor of present-day Sicilian sheep, and Sicilian shepherds still make the same cheese using the same ancient method.

The life of the Sicilian shepherd is a lonely one. His days are spent milking, making cheese and leading his flock from one mountain pasture to another. He passes the night alone in the mountains, guarding his vulnerable animals against accidents and the danger of wild boar attack. If he is lucky, the pasture will have a paggarhiu, a conical-shaped straw hut of prehistoric design, to shelter him; if not, he sleeps exposed to the elements with one eye open. The words of an old Sicilian folk song are still true today. One verse translates:

I spent last night in a yellow pasture, But soon my blanket will be snow. Such is the life of a shepherd.

As is often the case in Sicily, however, things are not as they immediately seem. For beneath the surface of this seemingly meek, simple existence, there is another, quite different aspect to the shepherd’s personality.

Traditionally, farmland in Sicily was divided into large baronial estates called latifondi. Peasant farmers, cuntadini, worked these lands for their powerful masters. This feudal system remained virtually intact until the great land reforms after World War II.

Throughout this long history of peasant servitude, the shepherds could never be brought under the heel of any barony. The wandering aspect of their lives, leading flocks from pasture to pasture, made it difficult to determine under whose baronial jurisdiction they belonged. The shepherds became a fiercely independent group. If laws and decrees were unjust or taxes harsh (as was usually the case), the shepherds simply ignored them.

At the same time, they maintained a strict code of honor and morality among themselves. For example, the paggarhiu, made of straw, could not be locked. These structures were regarded as communal property, and any supplies used were replaced for the next occupant. These straw huts became the drop-off point for secret communications among the leaders of peasant uprisings and resistance movements as recently as World War II. At times, the leaders of these causes used them as their own hiding places, secure that betrayal would never come from a shepherd.

Over time, stories and legends of the shepherds’ independence, cunning and ingenuity became part of Sicily’s folklore. Following in this tradition is the story of the baron and the shepherd.

My family is from the small, beautiful, ancient Sicilian mountain city of Polizzi Generosa. It lies in the Madonie Mountains at 4,000 feet above sea level, about 70 miles from Palermo. In 1997, I had the good fortune to spend the month of August there.

The principal summertime social activity in Polizzi is to pass the evening strolling back and forth between the main piazza and the overlook, a distance of a few city blocks. The entire population puts in an appearance at one time or another during the evening. On Sundays or holidays, people pursue the same activity dressed in their best.

One evening, as I was stopping in one of the coffee bars, my friend Nino Gianfrisco came walking down the street toward me. Nino, an electrician by trade, is of cherubic build. His dark, almond-shaped eyes hold the luster of some ancient Levantine forebear. His long tangle of black curly hair, often tied in place at the back, was straining at its tether.

Nino’s smile sparkled as he entered the bar. Speaking quietly in Sicilian, he said that he had made arrangements for us to visit a paggarhiu the next morning and to eat hot ricotta with the shepherd. My excitement at the prospect of this outing gave him great pleasure and his smile grew even brighter.

The next morning at 6:30, I walked to our meeting place. The streets were still as the brilliant morning sunlight touched the ancient buildings. I passed rows of narrow, balconied three-story houses, which gave way to more imposing structures, like the ruins of a Byzantine fortress built in 780. Nowadays, the only invaders storming its ramparts are blades of grass forcing their way between the granite blocks. These final conquerors rallied in the sun.

At one point the narrow street opened to reveal the Chiesa Madre, perched at an angle on its surrounding pedestal steps. Built in AD 1260, it occupies the same site as a temple built in the 7th century BC by a Greek cult to the goddess Isis. The ancient name for Polizzi is Polis-Isis, “the city of Isis.”

Farther along was the Palazzo of the Baron Gagliardo di Carpinello, seat of the city’s oldest and most powerful aristocratic family. The huge Baroque building contains 150 rooms and, together with its hanging gardens, encompasses two city blocks. The massive stone portal is carved in exquisite Baroque style. Above the substantial wooden doors, a marble slab is simply carved with a sundial and a moon dial, representing the family’s temporal power.

Down on the main street, I saw Nino waiting at our meeting place. He carried a pink box from a pastry shop. As he had told me, it is traditional when visiting the paggarhiu to bring the shepherd some ricotta-filled pastry. The shepherd rarely gets to town to sample sweets. Besides, the pastry gives him an opportunity to take pride in the delicious ways city people put his ricotta to use.

Nino and I stepped into a cafe for a cappuccino and a cornettu custard-filled horn-shaped pastry, the favorite Polizziani breakfast. Santo Lipani and his sister Mimma would be joining us on the expedition. In a moment, they, too, entered the cafe.

Santo is the chef and owner of a restaurant. Food lovers have traveled from as far away as San Francisco to Polizzi just to eat Santo’s food. Squarely built with fair skin, reddish hair and a large blond mustache, Santo so clearly has the blood of Viking or Swabian conquerors in his veins that we jokingly call him Ulrich.

Mimma is the exact opposite of her brother, small with dark hair and brown eyes filled with laughter and a glint of mischief. She was home for vacation from Pisa, where she works as an executive assistant in a shoe factory, and by now, in mid-August, her olive complexion was well bronzed by the Sicilian sun. With a knowing smile, Mimma opened her knapsack to show a freshly baked round loaf of semolina bread. “What,” she said, with a head-bob, arched eyebrows and hand gestures, “were you going to eat ricotta without bread?”

After breakfast, our little band climbed into Nino’s red Alfetta and in five minutes we were deep into the countryside. After the summer wheat harvest, the hilly landscape was a palette of gold and sand. Occasionally, there was a patch of black where fire had been used to clear a field, a time-honored method for keeping the land fertile.

After some discussion about which dirt road would lead us closest to the still unseen paggarhiu, and several failed attempts, Nino announced that we were finally on the right track. The rest of us were doubtful, but silent. When the road dead-ended in a sun-parched pasture, we remained skeptical but followed Nino on foot anyway.

Soon we reached a walled 16th-century compound. These buildings, belonging to an aristocratic family, had stabled farm animals and provided cramped living quarters to peasant farmers for generations. Above the main entrance were emblazoned the sun and moon dials of the Baron Gagliardo di Carpinello’s coat of arms.

Fifty sheep were penned in a nearby pasture with their canine sentries. And just outside the far wall of the baron’s compound was the paggarhiu. Through cracks in the door, we could see a fire burning inside. Ricotta preparation had begun.

This was the first paggarhiu I had ever seen up close. It was surprisingly large. The stacked stone base was 20 feet in diameter. Above it, a conical skeleton of cane poles thatched with straw rose to the same height. The symmetry and proportion of its design were strangely reminiscent of the venerable ancient wonder: the Great Pyramid.

We called at the door. It opened slowly to reveal the slight figure of a man shadowed by the ancient darkness. He stooped to pass into the light, and I saw his face framed by the straw of the paggarhiu.

It was oval, with a somewhat pointed chin; a long, straight nose divided it exactly in half. Even though his complexion was leathery from years of working outdoors and showed him to be a man in his late 60s, his cheeks were a brilliant, child-like pink. His eyes, thick-lidded and nearly hidden by his bushy brows, held the most kind, docile expression I have ever seen. A salt-and-pepper mustache adorned his upper lip, and the rest of his face was covered in snowy white stubble. His ears stuck out a bit from his head. The sum of his countenance made the shepherd look remarkably like a sheep.

We bade good morning to the shepherd, whose name was Stefanu Guglizza, and shook hands all around. Nino discretely presented him with the pastry. Lowering his face to hide the blush that came to his already bright cheeks, Stafanu accepted the offering with both hands.

He quickly invited us inside and closed the door, explaining that the draft was diminishing the fire. The light of the small fire did little to dispel the darkness inside the paggarhiu, but it served to open our noses to the sweet smells of straw and milk and fresh cheese. Our eyes adjusting, we saw the shepherd removing the morning’s first cheese from tubs filled with whey and placing it in straw baskets.

Near to the fire sat a large copper caldron. It was blackened on the outside from years of use on an open flame, but its tinned interior was immaculately clean. Stefanu asked if we would help him set it on the fire. He poured in the whey and we waited for the ricotta to come to the top.

The process of ricotta-making is simple but arduous. While the milk is still warm from the ewe, it is poured into tubs and mixed with rennet (quagghiu in Sicilian), a preparation made from the stomach lining membrane of lambs or calves that is used in practically all the world’s cheese-making. In Sicily, it is always made from lambs and it clabbers the milk, turning it to curds and whey.

The curds are broken up with a wooden pounding tool and quickly reform. This first cheese is called tuma. Some fresh, unsalted tuma is sold for use in both savory and sweet dishes. Most of it, however, is salted and dried over a period of four months, turning it to the grating cheese tumazzu, known outside Sicily as Pecorino-Siciliano.

After the first cheese is formed, the whey is placed in a caldron, mixed with some fresh ewe’s milk and some salt dissolved in water and recooked (which is what “ricotta” means). As the mixture heats, schuma, a white froth of residue and fat, rises to the surface. It is removed with a copper skimmer and fed to the dogs.

As the mixture reaches scalding temperature, the ricotta, as if by magic, rises to the top. It is skimmed off and placed in straw baskets to drain. The remaining liquid, called sieru, is poured into tubs and the first cheese is replaced in it for five hours to complete its formation. Ricotta not sold within a day is salted and pressed into hard ricotta, ricotta dura, used as grating cheese for soups and pasta dishes.

The arduous nature of this type of cheese-making is in the milking of the ewes. Ten liters of milk is required to make one kilo of cheese. At each milking, a ewe gives a mere half liter of milk, meaning that the milk of 20 ewes is needed to produce a single kilo of cheese. The ewes must be milked twice a day, morning and evening.

I asked Stefanu if he had any help with this task. He proudly told me that two of his sons were also shepherds. He added, with a note of sadness, that his third son, “the one who studied,” never comes to the paggarhiu.

The shepherd presented the hot ricotta and sieru to us in a copper bowl. With a humble bow, he went about the task of skimming off the rest of the morning’s ricotta. We set the bowl atop a five-gallon milk can in front of the paggarhiu in the glorious morning sun. On Mimma’s cue, Santo cut slices from the edges of the round loaf of bread, hollowing them out into spoons.

We crouched around the milk can and filled our bread spoons with hot ricotta. We blew over it to cool it off and then slid the fluffy hot cheese into our mouths. Our senses filled with the delicate, warm, slightly smoky flavor. Between swallows, our ears tuned in to the buzzing of insects and the bleating of sheep and barking of dogs carried on the summer breeze. Our little band smiled and laughed, taking as much pleasure in watching each other eat this ancient, simple food as in eating it ourselves.

At one point, Santo cut bread into chunks and dropped them into the sieru to soak. Mimma smiled. We ate that as well, fishing it out with our fingers and slurping up every last bite. Stefanu came outside with a shy, pleased expression and a container of drained ricotta to take with us back to Polizzi. We thanked the gracious shepherd for his hospitality, and after several go-rounds of well-wishes and hand-shaking, we bade him farewell. Reaching the little red Alfetta, I turned around to find that the paggarhiu, the small flock and the baron’s compound had disappeared back into the landscape.

Nino, Santo, Mimma and I rode back to town in a contented silence. Speaking as if joining an already existing conversation, Nino said, “You know, the life of this shepherd is not as poor and lonely as one might think.”

It seems that Stefanu and his sons have a flock of 700 sheep, producing about 60 kilos of cheese a day. Although the work is demanding, and his sons (two of them, at least) do spend lonely nights with the flock in distant pastures, Stefanu returns to his bed in Polizzi every night. And what a bed it is!

Twenty years ago, the Baron Gagliardo di Carpinello could no longer manage the taxes and upkeep on his 500-year-old 150-room palazzo. For a mere $50,000, the largest, most prestigious residence in Polizzi was sold to a partnership of local businessmen. It was partitioned into apartments and sold off as co-operative units.

Stefanu, the humble shepherd, and his wife bought one of these units. It includes not only the baron’s bedroom but the baron’s bed, a massive Baroque model complete with tall bedposts and a full canopy.

Every night, the fortunate shepherd sleeps in the baron’s bed, and he dreams the baron’s dreams. But in the morning, his animals waiting to be milked call him to the paggarhiu, and he is the shepherd again. A small victory, perhaps, for the humble over the haughty, but a modern conclusion to the age-old strife between the baron and the shepherd.

Pasta with Ricotta (Pasta ca Ricotta)

Active Work Time: 5 minutes * Total Preparation Time: 20 minutes * Vegetarian * Easy

The sheer simplicity of Pasta ca Ricotta has nourished and nurtured many generations of Polizziani shepherds and aristocrats alike. The delicate, subtle flavor of this dish depends entirely on the quality of the ricotta.

Water

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

Salt, preferably sea salt

1 pound linguini or spaghetti

3/4 pound ricotta, preferably rennet-based

* Bring 6 quarts water, olive oil and 2 tablespoons salt to boil in large pot. Add pasta and cook until just tender to the bite, about 7 minutes.

* Meanwhile, heat serving bowl with hot tap water. Dry it, place ricotta in bowl and mash it with a fork. Mix in 3/4 cup of pasta water if using rennet-based ricotta to loosen it (if using acid- or vinegar-based ricotta, omit this step).

* Drain pasta and toss with ricotta. Taste and season with salt if needed. Serve immediately.

4 servings. Each serving: 626 calories; 221 mg sodium; 43 mg cholesterol; 19 grams fat; 88 grams carbohydrates; 24 grams protein; 0.36 gram fiber.

Rapini and Pasta Soup (Minestra ‘i Qualazzi)

Active Work Time: 20 minutes * Total Preparation Time: 40 minutes * * Vegetarian

Qualazzi are wild, thin-stemmed rapini, mostly leaves with few broccoli-like buds per stalk. They grow in the countryside around Polizzi after the rains in early autumn until the first frost. Their flavor is more intense than the cultivated variety. Even so, cultivated rapini, sometimes called broccoli rabe, still maintain the characteristic bitter, pungent flavor of the field variety.

For this recipe, the greens are cooked until quite soft in the same pot as the pasta, and their flavor enhances the pasta. Simply prepared, this rustic soup is a wonderfully warming dish. As with many of the minestre from Polizzi Generosa, it is served with the hard grating version of ricotta--ricotta salata--on top.

1 bunch (about 1 pound) rapini

2 tablespoons plus 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Water

2 tablespoons salt, preferably sea salt

1 pound ditali or ditalini (small tube pasta sometimes called salad macaroni)

2 cloves garlic, peeled

1 (28-ounce) can Italian whole peeled tomatoes, drained

1 teaspoon sugar

Black pepper

1/4 pound ricotta salata in 1 piece

Crushed red pepper flakes, optional

* Clean greens and cut away 1 to 2 inches of thick, fibrous ends, then cut greens into 1 1/2-inch lengths.

* Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in pasta pot over medium heat. Add greens, turn them in the oil and immediately add 5 quarts water. Stir in salt, cover, increase heat to high and bring to boil.

* Reduce heat and gently simmer, covered, for 10 minutes, until greens are quite soft.

* Uncover and increase heat to high. When water returns to boil, add pasta and cook until just tender to the bite, about 10 minutes.

* Meanwhile, place remaining 1/4 cup olive oil and garlic in heavy 6-quart pot. Saute over medium-low heat until garlic is light golden on all sides, about 5 minutes.

* Crush tomatoes by hand and stir them well into oil. Remove garlic cloves. Stir in sugar and black pepper (no salt). Reduce heat and simmer gently for rest of the pasta cooking time.

* When pasta has cooked, add 7 cups of pasta water to tomato sauce. Drain pasta and greens, allowing some of liquid to cling, and toss them in pot with tomato sauce. Allow flavors to mingle 3 minutes, uncovered, over low heat. Serve very hot. Grate plenty of ricotta salata over top and add crushed red pepper to taste.

6 servings. Each serving: 459 calories; 970 mg sodium; 4 mg cholesterol; 17 grams fat; 63 grams carbohydrates; 15 grams protein; 1.46 grams fiber.

Fried Ricotta Omelet (Ricotta Fritta cu l’Ovu)

Active Work Time: 25 minutes * Total Preparation Time: 25 minutes, plus 1 hour draining if needed * Vegetarian

You need to use ricotta that is dry enough to fry, but not ricotta salata. It’s best if you buy rennet-curdled ricotta from a local producer, but if you can only find watery, mass-produced ricotta, you may be able to prepare it before frying. Take a 1-pound plastic container of ricotta and poke numerous holes in the sides and bottom with a small knife. Set the container in a bowl, and let it drain for 1 hour. Push the ricotta down with a soup spoon to squeeze out as much liquid as possible, then remove the ricotta from the container as from a mold. Dry the surface of the ricotta with paper towels. The ricotta should then be dry enough to slice and fry. Note: The Test Kitchen found that this method did not work with the Polly-O brand of ricotta. It did work with the Precious and Frigo brands. Low fat and nonfat ricottas are not recommended because they are more watery than whole ricotta.

3/4 pound rennet-curdled ricotta or 1 pound acid- or vinegar-curdled ricotta, drained as described above

3 eggs

Salt, preferably sea salt

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Black pepper

16 black oil-cured olives, pitted

* Slice ricotta into roughly 3-inch triangles or circles, about 1 inch thick.

* Break eggs into bowl, add salt to taste and beat until fluffy.

* Heat oil over medium heat in heavy, well-cured skillet large enough to accommodate ricotta in 1 layer. Slip ricotta and olives into skillet and fry for 5 minutes, nudging with wooden spoon every once in a while to keep cheese from sticking.

* Turn ricotta over with spatula. It will not have taken much color, but should be firm and easy to handle. Roll olives onto another side. Fry this side 2 minutes (it will continue to brown after eggs are added).

* Pour beaten eggs over ricotta and olives. Evenly distribute them with fork. Be sure that there are no olives at very edge.

* Reduce heat to medium-low, cover and cook until underside is rich golden brown, about 8 minutes. This can be checked by gently lifting 1 edge with spatula.

* Remove cover and place skillet under broiler as close to flame as possible. Leave door open with pan handle sticking out. Cook until golden, about 2 minutes. Carefully slide omelet, face up, onto plate. Use pieces of brown paper or paper towel to absorb any excess oil. Add few coarse grindings of black pepper, slice and serve.

4 servings. Each serving: 362 calories; 571 mg sodium; 202 mg cholesterol; 32 grams fat; 4 grams carbohydrates; 15 grams protein; 0.44 gram fiber.

Cannoli (Cannola)

Active Work Time (Shells): 1 hour 15 minutes * Total Preparation Time (Shells): 1 1/2 hours * Total Preparation Time (Filling and Assembly): 30 minutes * Active Work Time (Filling and Assembly): 30 minutes

The versatility of ricotta as an ingredient in both savory and sweet dishes shows to great advantage in this ubiquitous Sicilian dessert. It’s important, however, to use rennet-based ricotta, not acid- or vinegar-based ricotta. The Times Test Kitchen tried to make the cannoli filling with acid-based ricotta and found it didn’t thicken well enough to stay in the shells.

The word “cannola” comes from the Sicilian word for cane or bamboo, “ ‘a canna,” which was the material from which cannoli-shell forms were originally made. Nowadays, these forms are made of tin or stainless steel and are easily found in cookware stores. Bamboo ones, however, are easy to make and produce a flakier, puffier pastry shell. To make them, cut dried bamboo poles with a fine-toothed saw into 6-inch lengths about 1 inch in diameter, with no rings or taper. Store them in a well-ventilated container for years of use. Whether using store-bought or homemade forms, it is best to have at least 8 of them on hand to make the shells efficiently.

Cannoli shells may be made up to two days before needed, loosely covered with waxed paper and stored in a dry place. Do not refrigerate. Fill cannoli just before serving, as the ricotta cream tends to make the shells soft and rubbery. Refrigerating filled cannoli, even for very few minutes, will accelerate this condition

CANNOLI SHELLS

1 3/4 cups flour

2 tablespoons powdered sugar

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

3/4 teaspoon Dutch process cocoa powder

Salt

2 tablespoons butter, chilled and cut into small pieces

1 egg, slightly beaten

1/4 cup dry white wine

1 egg white, slightly beaten (for sealing the edges)

2 quarts corn oil

* Sift together flour, powdered sugar, cinnamon, cocoa powder and pinch of salt. Sift again.

* Cut butter into flour mixture (see Recipe Decoder, H2) until mixture is consistency of corn meal. Cut in beaten egg. Add white wine slowly, until dough ball forms.

* Knead dough just enough to achieve elastic consistency. Over-kneading will cause cannoli pastry to become tough. Wrap dough in floured cloth and let it rest 15 minutes.

* Pour oil into 6-quart pot over medium heat and slowly heat it to 350 degrees. (Test with thermometer or by dropping in small square of bread that should brown quickly but not burn.)

* After dough has rested and while oil is heating, divide dough into quarters. Working with 1 quarter at a time and leaving rest covered, roll out dough on lightly floured surface until 1/16 inch thick. Cut into 4-inch circles with cookie cutter as closely together as possible. With rolling pin, shape these circles into ovals slightly shorter than cannoli forms.

* Wrap each oval securely around a cannoli form, overlapping it in center. Moisten edge with a little egg white and press seams together to seal. Be certain not to “glue” dough to cannoli form with egg white. (Whites should touch dough, not cannoli form.) Flare edges of dough to create traditional cannoli shape (see cover photo).

* Drop several shells into heated oil. Fry until shells are rich brown all around, 2 to 3 minutes. If using stainless steel forms, gently turn cannoli with wooden spoon for even browning during frying (cannoli made with lighter bamboo forms tend to rise to surface and turn on their own).

* To remove cooked shells from oil, slip tine of carving fork inside form and carefully lift from oil. Hold it over oil to drain. Exercise extreme caution to prevent burns.

* Gently roll shells on brown paper to absorb excess grease. When they are cool enough to handle, gently hold shell in 1 hand while grasping cannoli form with fingers of other hand and remove with slight twist.

* Repeat rolling and frying process until all dough and scraps have been made into shells.

RICOTTA-CREAM FILLING

2 pounds rennet-based ricotta

2 1/2 cups powdered sugar, sifted

3 tablespoons orange liqueur (Cointreau, Grand Marnier)

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1/4 cup chopped mixed candied fruits

1/2 cup dark chocolate chips

Pass ricotta through largest-holed screen of food mill to break up curds. (Do not use electric mixer; it will destroy the curds.)

Stir in sugar with wooden spoon. Mix in liqueur and vanilla, then fold in mixed candied fruits and chocolate chips. Cover and refrigerate until needed.

ASSEMBLY

Strips candied orange peel, optional

12 to 48 candied cherries

Powdered sugar

Generously fill shells using pastry bag or spoon. Fill them from 1 end, and then from opposite end.

Decorate ends with candied orange peel and halved or whole candied cherries. Dust each cannoli with powdered sugar and serve.

24 cannoli. Each cannoli: 180 calories; 60 mg sodium; 22 mg cholesterol; 7 grams fat; 25 grams carbohydrates; 4 grams protein; 0.04 gram fiber.

*

Schiavelli is the author of “Bruculinu, America” (Chapters/Houghton Mifflin, 1998) and “Papa Andrea’s Sicilian Table” (Birch Lane Press/Carol Publishing Group, 1993). He has written articles on Sicilian food and culture for The Times, Saveur and other publications. Schiavelli is also a popular character actor, appearing in motion pictures and television.

Corduroy place mat from Strouds and Bristol Farms, South Pasadena. Italian pottery bowl from Cinzia, Santa Monica.