Bel Paese

This is probably the first cheese to be commercialized on the grand scale. Produced by the company Egidio Galbani around the turn of the century, Bel Paese (meaning ‘beautiful land’) is a soft cows’ milk cheese with a creamy yellow colour and a fat content of 45%. Used initially as a table cheese, it is now widely used for cooking because of its melting properties, especially in pasta timbales or in the modern toast al formaggio e prosciutto (ham and cheese toast). Due to the increasing popularity of other cheeses, the Bel Paese is disappearing more and more from Italian cheeseboards and restaurants.