Kačkavalj

Caciocavallo is a type of pasta filata ('stretched-curd') cheese made out of sheep's or cow's milk. It is produced throughout southern Italy, particularly in the Apennine Mountains and in the Gargano peninsula. Shaped like a teardrop, it is similar in taste to the aged southern Italian provolone cheese, with a hard edible rind. The Italian name of the cheese caciocavallo literally means 'horse cheese' and it is generally thought that the name derives from the fact that two cheese forms are always bound together with rope and then left to mature by placing them a cavallo, i.e. straddling, upon a horizontal stick or branch. A sort of caciocavallo was first mentioned around 500 BC by Hippocrates, emphasising the "Greeks' cleverness in making cheese". Columella in his classic treatise on agriculture, De re rustica (35–45 CE), described precisely the methods used in its preparation, making it one of the oldest known cheeses in the world. Types of cheese with names similar to caciocavallo are common throughout the Balkans and southern Italy. In Sicily, the Ragusano DOP, known locally as caciocavallo ragusano had to drop the denomination "caciocavallo" in order to get DOP status.

Source: Wikipedia