Pascoli fioriti e formaggio d’alpeggio: il caso del Plaisentif

[Machine translation] Cheese is one of the foods that, processed by hand, embody a cultural, mythical and ritual heritage that is difficult to find in other foods. The processes of rediscovery and enhancement of traditional dairy products contribute significantly to giving new life to Alpine areas, also encouraging the annual or seasonal retention of young people in mountain areas. In the highlands of the metropolitan city of Turin, the production of Plaisentif, also known as the “purple cheese”, has gained importance and visibility. It is a mountain tomato produced in Val Chisone and in the upper Susa Valley with the raw milk of cows fed on pastures during the flowering period (June-July): a small “extreme” dairy production that requires collaboration between complex knowledge. The history of Plaisentif clearly shows how an exception can be an opportunity to establish a rule: in this case a regulation for dairy production. It all began in 1999 when Giovanni Laurenti, then mayor of Perosa Argentina, a town in the middle Val Chisone, rediscovered the history of Plaisentif starting from an article in which the historian Ettore Patria had reconstructed the commercial relations between the lower and upper Val Chisone at the end of the 16th century. There are many who are competing for the credit for the recovery of “purple cheese”, a cheese that can only be sold after aging for at least sixty days and starting from the third Sunday of September, the day on which the Plaisentif Fair and the historical re-enactment “Poggio Oddone — Land of Border” take place in the municipality of Perosa Argentina. The Gift of Cheese.”