Product Review: Mitica: Sottocenere al Tartufo cheese

The name of this Italian cheese actually tells you something about it instead of telling you where it was first made (Venice [1]). The word sottocenere means "under ash". This refers to the gray rind which is made of ash with a blend of spices, including anise, cinnamon, cloves, coriander, fennel, and nutmeg.[2] The second part, al tartufo, means "with truffles". Throughout the cheese are little shavings of black truffle and the ash rind also has white truffle oil in it.[3]

I thought the cheese itself was like Mozzarella but creamier. The truffle flavor is just enough to catch your breath a little (and just a bit too intense for my taste). Even when I melted it over French Bread it was too much for me—but Leann loved it. Trust me when I say you shouldn't try eating the rind.

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Notes:

[1] See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sottocenere al tartufo.

[2] See http://voices.washingtonpost.com/all-we-can-eat/recipes/say-cheese-sottocenere-al-tart.html.

[3] A true white truffle oil is olive oil that has been infused with white truffles. The vast majority, though, are olive oil with a synthetic truffle flavor—2,4-dithiapentane (shown above).

Image attributions:

The chemical structure of 2,4-dithiapentane is by Jérôme, available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2,4-dithiapentane.svg.