In Val di Sole, cheese-making is a long and ancient tradition. Here in the malghe, the typical farmhouses, and cheese companies, milk from the mountains is made into different kinds of cheese, some soft, others mature, each with their own unique unmistakable characteristics. Cheese plays an absolutely central role in gastronomy in Val di Sole, as do the skills of the cheese-makers who turn the milk into cheese. They make lots of different cheese here in Val di Sole, but during your holiday you must make sure you taste Casolét.
Casolèt is a traditional cheese from Val di Sole. It is a typical raw paste mountain cheese made with full-fat milk. It used to only be made in the autumn after the herds came down from the high pastures and the daily milking produced small amounts of milk, and was therefore the quintessential home-made cheese, mainly eaten by families during the long winter months. Its name has Latin origins, deriving from caseolus, which means small cheese and in fact, even today, the most traditional cheeses have a heel of about 7-12 cm and a diameter of about 10-22 cm, and weigh in at just about a kilo each.
You can buy Casolét and other Val di Sole cheeses from the local cheese companies or from the many farms and, in the summer, directly from the farmhouses or malghe in the mountains!