Basket Cheese Is an 85-Year-Old Tradition for Local Company

Pittsburgh Post-Gazetter ^ | April 17, 201 | Gretchen McKay

[nickcarraway]

Easter often is associated with the candy aisle, and its tempting display of rainbow-hued jelly beans, foil-wrapped chocolate eggs and bright-yellow marshmallow Peeps.

For an 85-year-old cheese company in Verona, the 40-day Lenten season is punctuated not by sweets but by an unusual cheese product that for two days each week leading up to Easter puts its small staff into curd-making overdrive. And no, it's not the ricotta on which the family has built its name over three generations.

It's called basket cheese, and it's been an Easter tradition at Lamagna Cheese Co. for as long as anyone can remember -- probably since the company first set up shop in the Strip District in 1928, guesses vice president Chris Lamagna, one of four brothers who now run the company.

Italian Easter pie makes a tasty post-Lent treat

Post-Gazette food writer Gretchen McKay talks with KDKA's Kristine Sorenson about making a traditional Italian Easter cheese pie. (KDKA video; 4/17/2014)

If you're not Italian, or an Italian-American who grew up celebrating Nonna's Old World food traditions, you might be unfamiliar with this smooth, bright-white cheese that comes in white plastic containers. Delicate in texture (think tofu), it's made with pasteurized cows' milk and rennet, an enzyme that causes milk to become cheese by separating it into the solid curds and liquid whey. The stuff looks like a cross between fresh mozzarella and ricotta, but has a much milder taste than those semi-soft cousins -- somewhat bland, if we're going to be perfectly honest, with only the faintest flavor of curds.

[nickcarraway]

Savory Easter Pie is Italian favorite

[nickcarraway]

[DannyTN]

"I hope you've got good plumbing. It's just that I've been eating a lot of cheese lately."

[DannyTN]

"I hope you've got good plumbing. It's just that I've been eating a lot of cheese lately."