The Farmer’s Cheese Fair in Corsica is held every year in Venaco, a small French town in the department of Haute-Corse, in the period between spring and summer. The Fiera di u Casgiu celebrates the regional farm cheese by selecting breeders who make them with sheep’s or goat’s milk from their flocks or herds, from strictly extensive (total freedom is guaranteed to the animals raised) and local farms.
The organizing association is part of the Federation of Corsican Rural and Artisan Agricultural Fairs and promotes local products and identity, guaranteeing their quality and genuineness, with particular reference to agri-food and dairy production.
The 2023 edition (the 26th) of the gastronomic and cultural event has been scheduled for Saturday 29 and Sunday 30 April.
To reach Venaco from the Italian peninsula, a convenient solution is represented by a journey by sea, perhaps even embarking a vehicle, with the Livorno – Bastia ferries; after disembarking in the main Corsican port, you can cover the approximately 80 kilometers that separate it from the mountain village by car or with the Chemins de fer de la Corse train which, from Bastia, stops in Venaco after about two hours.
U Casgiu (the cheese in Corsican) and other typical products on display
At the event you can mainly find shepherds and cheese producers, but also exhibitors of other agri-food creations, such as bakery and pastry products that contain farm cheese (in the Corsican language casgiu) or brocciu (typical dairy product of the island), cured meats, honey, wine, oil and more, artisans and cultural operators, as well as exhibitors who carry out activities related to the rural environment and sustainable development.
As far as delicatessen is concerned, the participating farmers or producers must be supporters not only of extensive breeding, which provides for freedom and a diet based on berries and acorns, of flocks of sheep or herds of goats of native breeds, but also of slaughtering not before of twelve months of age of the animal.
In addition to the gastronomic, artisan and cultural stands, tastings, workshops, conferences, debates, musical entertainment, a lottery and a competition open to producers of the following types of cheese are scheduled, evaluated on the basis of presentation, appearance, shape, characteristics of the dough, to the smells, tastes and aromas:
- sartinesi, with uncooked pressed paste made from sheep’s and/or goat’s milk, protected by a thick, white to straw-yellow, compact and crumbly rind;
- bastilicacciu, a soft texture with a natural crust, made from raw sheep’s milk, liquid and creamy;
- Venachese, made from raw sheep’s and goat’s milk, with a soft texture and a washed rind;
- niulincu, soft paste, made from sheep’s or goat’s milk;
- calinzanincu, a soft texture, with a washed rind, made from raw sheep’s or goat’s milk.
As one producer association states, “these raw milk farmhouse cheeses are full of aromas; taste derives from flavors (salty, bitter…), from aromas (dried fruit, vegetables…) and from gustatory sensations (spicy, astringent…); some aromatic compounds come directly from the vegetation consumed by the animals, others from the animal, which transforms the compounds of its diet, in particular through rumination; a raw milk cheese offers more aromas than a pasteurized or thermised milk cheese, especially if, as in Corsica, the animals benefit from different and aromatic natural resources”.
The Federation of Rural Agricultural and Craft Fairs of Corsica (FFRAAC) brings together different event organizations around a brand which ensures that sales spaces are reserved for producers and craftsmen who work all year round on the island. Every fair or market on the island can use the brand after a trial period of membership. Among the objectives are the enhancement of local activities, the promotion of agricultural trades, insular crafts, popular events and rural fairs.
The territory
The territory of Venaco is located in the Regional Natural Park of Corsica and, prior to the suppression that took place in 2015, formed a canton comprising nine mountain villages, at altitudes between 198 and 2,626 meters (Casanova, Muraccioli, Nuceta, Poghju, Riventosa, Ruspigliani, San Petru, Venacu, also known as U Serraghju, and Vivariu), between the forest of Vizzavona and the city of Corte (to which canton they currently belong).
Le Venacais, a land of pastoral tradition between the plains and the mountains, has always been at the center of the traditional transhumance routes that took the herds to the summer pastures and brought them back, in autumn, to the eastern plain of the Aleria. The history and the agro-pastoral and dairy traditions make it the territory of choice for the fair.
