Gorgonzola is the only soft cheese entirely lactose free, so it can be safely consumed by those who suffer from lactose intolerance. That’s what’s been said by Professor Mario Del Piano chief of Gastroenterology at the Maggiore Hospital of Novara and faculty member of the Universities of Novara and Turin, who has been studying diseases of the digestive system since 1995. The total absence of lactose in Gorgonzola has been demonstrated through rigorous scientific analyses of 19 duplicate samples carried out by two independent laboratories. In all samples tested, it was found a complete absence of lactose. According to Professor Del Piano "Lactose intolerance is a condition where the consumption of milk, dairy products and some types of cheese causes a non-allergic reaction characterized by unpleasant gastrointestinal disorders.”

"This condition is to be blamed on the lack or low expression levels of the enzymes responsible for the digestion of the lactose, the sugar that is found in milk and other dairy products. Among these, the lactase enzyme is the main catalyst of the hydrolysis of lactose into glucose and galactose,” Professor Mario Del Piano said.

“We should all consider that lactose is present in the breast milk as the sole carbohydrate nutrient in early childhood. In infants, therefore, lactase activity is obviously much higher because the milk is the main nutrient. However, in most post adolescent individuals this enzyme activity is downregulated reaching minimal levels in adults." Professor Del Piano said.

"A lot of people - said Professor Del Piano - suffer from the above mentioned disorders without knowing their cause, others are aware of their intolerance, but do not know which cheese they can eat".

"Gorgonzola, thanks to the three-step fermentation of its milk: lactic acid-, yeast- and then mold-driven fermentation, it is therefore recommended to all those individuals who despite having lactose intolerance do not want to give up eating a good cheese. "

According to historians the first Gorgonzola to be produced in history dates back between the 9th and 12th century in the surroundings of Milan. In the early Middle Ages people didn’t use to pay much attention to the classification of cheeses as they were all referred at with the Latin word “caseus”; this name included that special cheese, veined with greenish mouldy.

At that time no branch of learning could explain how that was possible, and for this reason, until the beginning of the 19th century people used to consider the process as something crossing the threshold of alchemy, like a magic or a miracle performed by nature that gave to the cheese that particular greenish nuance and an incomparable flavour.

Nonetheless, during the 16th century a new word, “stracchino”, had been coined in Lombardy. It referred to a kind of cheese produced after the cattle went down from the mountain pastures to the planes to recover from weariness; in fact, “stracco” means weary in dialect.

In the lowlands of Lombardy the “stracchino” started to be called “erborin”, a word meaning parsley and deriving from the local dialect, which well reminds of that greenish veining inside the cheese. This word had success and gradually became the label for a category of cheeses, the blue cheeses.
The migrations of dairymen’s families beyond the shores of the Ticino river introduced Piedmont to the production of Gorgonzola: this is how the manufacturing was shaped in Lombardy and Piedmont; both areas would later be officially ratified as original sites thanks to the establishment of the “Consorzio di tutela”, the Safeguard Consortium, in 1970.

Gorgonzola must be produced in the original sites using the milk gathered within the consortium area and there the cheese must follow the ageing process, be sliced and eventually sold. Shouldn’t this procedures be followed, the final product couldn’t be considered Gorgonzola.

The dairymen from Lombardy crossed the Ticino and arrived at Novara, in Piedmont. Novara was rich in water, herds and milk. The dairymen settled there and started to put into practice their craftsmanship.In a short time, Novara became the centre for the ageing of cheese, but nowadays (with some exceptions) it has lost that record, since most of the producers take care of that as well. Thus, Novara has became the capital of Gorgonzola supplying over 57% of cheese produced in one year in Italy.