Fontina Valle d’Aosta

Fontina

What it is

The Vercelli physician Pantaleone da Confienza described a cheese from these valleys in his Summa lacticiniorum of 1477, the first serious dairy treatise in Europe. What he described still melts unlike anything else: Fontina goes to a glossy cream where an alpine Gruyère pulls into elastic threads.

In the kitchen

For fonduta, dice it and steep it in just enough cold milk to cover for at least six hours, then melt it over water below 60 °C and beat in the yolks off the heat. Let it boil and it splits into oil and rubber.

Goes with

Potato White truffle Egg Butter Stone-ground polenta Nutmeg

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