Pecorino Toscano

Pecorino toscano is a firm-textured ewe's milk cheese produced in the Tuscany region of Italy. Since 1996 it has enjoyed protected designation of origin (PDO) status. Pliny the Elder, in his major encyclopædic work Naturalis Historia, describes several stages in the production of pecorino toscano, which he names as Lunense, apparently after the territory of Lunigiana. Other early names of the cheese include marzolino, after the month of March (marzo in Italian) in which production traditionally began. In 1475 the writer Bartolomeo Platina said that the Etruscan marzolino was as good as Parmesan cheese: "In Italy there are two types of cheese that compete for the first place: marzolino, so called by the Etruscans because it is made in Etruria in March, and Parmesan cheese, from the Cisalpine region, that is also known as maggengo, because it is produced in May (maggio in Italian)."

Source: Wikipedia