Pecorino Romano, my impressions

 Recently ordered some 12-month-old Pecorino Romano from Murray's, and before I get on to the taste testing, I want to cover some interesting history. For the Christians and Jews in the audience, this will cover topics relevant to religious history as well.

First off, Pecorino (from Pecor, the word for sheep) Romano is a very time-honored Roman and now Italian cheese. It goes back over two thousand years in tradition and was written about by various Roman authors, such as Marcus Tertulius Varro and Hippocrates. Virgil also mentioned this cheese, specifically noting it was part of the rations given to the average Roman legionaire, at a rate of 1 Roman ounce (27-28 grams) per man.

It was touted for it's keeping qualities, it's nutrients were considered ideal for health, and was favored both dry and fresh. Any Pecorino Romano over eight months old is considered suitable as a grating cheese and over five months as a fresh cheese.

On the religious front, this cheese would have been one part of the Roman diet that you could have gotten Jews and Christians raised Jewish to agree on. Sheep are kosher animals, and the methods used would not have been prohibited under kosher tradition. When it came to Roman love of pork, they would not have seen eye to eye, but the cheese would have been in profusion around the time of Christ and widely enjoyed by all Romans and their subjects.

Ironically, it is now mostly made in the Sardinia region of Italy as opposed to Rome proper (due in part to their high amount of sheep and due to earlier prohibitive food making regulations in Rome), though they still make it according to traditional Roman methods.

The Taste Test

Like before, I got my fellow cheese-loving mother to help with the taste test. First, though, I ordered a pound of cheese, which was shipped in two 0.5 lbs wedges. It had a slight yet not unpleasant odor, just enough to be detectable, and was undamaged from transport. It had been kept cool with icepacks and other packing material.

Both mom and I tried a wedge of it. I could definitely pick up that grain-like texture you usually associate with parmesan, and given Pecorino Romano is typically an alternative to it, this did not surprise me. It's a bit gritty going down but not to an uncomfortable degree. It's definitely a cheese even in its fresh, non-grated form that goes good with salads and pasta. Like the Manchego I ordered a while back, it also had the distinctive texture I usually associate with the sheep's milk cheese (which is less dense and slightly flaky as opposed to cow milk cheese) and was mildly sharp in intensity.

Mom noticed it also had a slight peppery taste, and I found that to be just enough to add a bit of zest to the umami, it was by no means too strong.

We decided to save the rest for our next pasta night.