Mascarpone Technological state of the

Art

INTRODUCTION
Mascarpone: One of the North Italian most traditional dairy
products.

Lombardy is a region in the northern part of Italy that has a rich

agricultural and dairy heritage. Around the late 1500s or late
1600s dairymen of Lombardy became famous for their fresh soft
cream cheese curds known as «Mascarpone» . The originate area
was between towns Lodi and Abbiategrasso to South-West
of Milan.

There are many different thoughts to how Mascarpone got its

name. It is believed that the name “Mascarpone” may come from
the Spanish “mas que bueno” (“better than
good”), from the days when the Spanish ruled Italy. Another
possibility is that the name is derived from “mascarpia,” the local
dialect term for ricotta, because very similar processes make
both ricotta and mascarpone. And lastly, the third most realistic
possibility is that the name comes from the Lombardy dialectal
term “mascherpa”, used to indicate a sub-product extracted from
the whey in the making of “stracchino” cheese.

In the past, till the first part of the last century, Mascarpone
cheese was a typically seasonal product as it was fresh without
any type of ageing, it was only made in the winter, as the cold
helped to keep it, reducing the risk of fermentations and
microbial contamination. This because the available cream was
obtained from natural separation during the production of the
local traditional hard cheese (become then Grana Padano and
Parmigiano Reggiano) enriched in bacteria.
In the last 30 years, the need to have Mascarpone all year round
and to increase its storability so that it can be sold outside its
area of origin as well, has made it necessary to introduce a series
of modifications to the production method with, as one of the
aims, respecting the regulations on storage.

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