Brös
Italian cheese preparation
Brös (also Bros, Bross, Brus or Bruss) is a Piedmontese and Ligurian preparation of cheese and grappa which, in former centuries, was typical of the peasant cuisine of the Upper Langa and West Liguria. Its pungent flavour gave rise to the proverb “Only love is stronger than Brös”. It has been conjectured that its name derives from Bresse.
History
The antiquity of this speciality is unknown, although it was probably well-established before the beginning of the nineteenth century when Vittorio di Sant’Albino described it in his Piedmontese-Italian dictionary. The original motivation was the avoidance of waste: pieces of stale, hard and/or mouldy cheese were mixed with homemade grappa (the distillate of the pomace remaining from winemaking) plus, perhaps, butter and spices, and left to ferment in an earthenware container until the mixture acquired a creamy texture. At this point it was covered and could be treated as a preserve.
Brös has acquired a certain cachet in recent years, and may often be found in the restaurants of the Langhe. However the robust traditional formulation has been largely replaced by one based on fresh cheeses such as Robiola and white wine.
Similarities
Brus da ricotta is a version without wine or grappa which is made in various parts of Piedmont by fermenting sheep's milk ricotta cheese for a month or more, and aromatizing with chilli or black pepper. It has been recognized as a “traditional Piedmontese product” by the regional government.
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This entry incorporates text from “Brös” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.