In the video below, Arttrav visits the Azienda Agricola La Torraccia (Reggello FI - www.la-torraccia.it ) to see how Pecorino cheese is made with raw sheeps milk the same or next day that it's taken from the animals.
Betty and Salvatore hosted us all morning, from cutting the curd at 9:30am (I skipped out on the 5am milking), pressing it into forms to make a soft cheese around 11... until the ricotta was ready at 1pm. The still warm ricotta was delicious! I also went home with a round of Marzolino (a small ovoid minimally aged cheese) and some aged pecorino.
The whole time Betty narrated the process and we also addressed some sticky issues, like the american ban on raw milk products, the low price they fetch for the baby male sheep they have to sell, and some silly regulations that limit their ability to be fully certified as an organic farm.
The beautiful original score dubbed "Bucolic cheese" is generously provided by Arturo in Letto, whose real name is AJ Weiss. AJ is a journalism student and aspiring rock star who I had the pleasure of teaching last term at UGA Cortona. He wrote a song and made a video about my colleague the Italian professor, about which you can read here: http://www.arttrav.com/travpod/ciao-marco/.
Note: This article was originally published in 2009 and updated in 2018.