Ritrovo Italian Regional Foods: Ritrovo Selections—Mt. Townsend Truffle & Salt Seastack

Outstanding Cheese or Dairy Product
sofi Gold Winner 2010

The buzz began five years ago when Ritrovo's Casina Rossa Truffle & Salt—a blend of hand-screened, air-dried Italian black truffles and sea salt from Italy’s Abruzzo region—garnered a sofi™ Award in the Outstanding Condiment category. “A lot of people were buying Truffle & Salt at retail and using it as a raw material in their products,” says Ilyse Rathet, who founded Seattle’s Ritrovo Italian Regional Foods with Ron Post. “That got us thinking.”

 While sponsoring a dinner at Seattle’s Port Townsend Film Festival, Rathet and Post met up with cheesemaker Matt Day, owner of Port Townsend Creamery. Soon, they were on their way to collaborating on a limited-edition cheese. “I was interested in creating a cheese with a truffle element,” says Day. “We choose Ritrovo’s Truffle & Salt because it creates a product with consistent results and we liked the way it added flavor to the cheese.” 

Truffle & Salt Seastack is a soft-ripened, creamy, earthy cow’s milk cheese that reflects the terroir of the Olympic Peninsula. Unlike Day’s regular Seastack cheese, where the cheese is rolled into salt, Truffle & Salt Seastack blends Truffle & Salt into the curd. The truffle flavor shines as the cheese continues to ripen. “The cheese has its own nuisance and is best on its own,” says Day, although he does recommend some sweet-salty combinations, such as pairing it with grapes, apples or pears. Truffle & Salt Seastack is available in 5-ounce wheels. —N. Denis

More About The Product

Previous sofi Gold Winner Ritrovo Selections Casina Rossa’s Truffle & Salt is paired with Townsend Creamery’s Seastack—a creamy cow’s milk cheese— to form a locally based partnership. The high-quality truffle is combined with cheese from a small dairy farm dairy in Washington to create a unique cheese. Also available in regular flavor Seastack.

Suggested retail price:
$12/0.32 pound.

Contact:
Ilyse Rathet, Ritrovo Italian Regional Foods, 206.985.1635

Website:
www.ritrovo.com

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