Cow’s milk, rennet and... a pinch of history. In a quest to combine a passion for cheese with flavours of a bygone era, the Perenzin family, proprietors of the historic dairy in Bagnolo, have “reinvented” a cheese of the Middle Ages. “Fascinated rather with the figure of the Châtelaine that had us looking way back into the past”, explains Emanuela Perenzin, “we did a bit of research, tried a few experiments, and ended up producing a cheese very similar in flavour and consistency to what we think might easily have been eaten by our forebears who lived in the shadow of castles and battlemented city walls”. Made with slightly fermented milk (left to stand at ambient temperature for 24 hours and then curdled), the Perenzin Mediaeval cheese is delicious on its own, and exquisite with polenta and honey... Flavours of long ago, but by no means consigned to history. Far from it.