Mascarpone

Mascarpone is a triple-cream cheese made from crème fraîche by denaturing with rennet. Sometimes buttermilk is added as well, depending on the brand. After denaturation, whey is removed without pressing or aging.

One can manufacture mascarpone by using cream, tartaric or citric acid, or even lemon juice. Mascarpone is used in various dishes of the Lombardy region of Italy, where it is a specialty. It is milky-white in color and is easily spread. When fresh, it smells like milk and cream, and sometimes it is used instead of butter or Parmesan cheese to thicken and enrich risotti. It is also a main ingredient of tiramisu and lasagne.

The cheese apparently originated in the area between Lodi and Abbiategrasso, Italy, southwest of Milan, probably in the late 16th or early 17th century. The name is said to come from "mascarpa", a milk product made from the whey of stracchino (aged cheese), or it may come from "mascarpia", the local dialect for ricotta; however, it is not made by the same process, nor is mascarpone made from whey, as ricotta is.

According to cuisine expert and journalist Gianni Brera, the correct name of the cheese would be mascherpone (also credited as a dismissed variant of the word), originally stemming from Cascina Mascherpa, a farmhouse no longer existing once located halfway between Milan and Pavia, belonging to the Mascherpa family.citation needed]