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The "calécc" is a typical stone structure covered with a removable tarpaulin and used by the herdsmen who produce Bitto cheese. It is built in fact exclusively in the Bitto valleys and belongs to the historical, cultural and environmental heritage of this area. It plays an essential role in the process which optimizes the quality of this cheese.

Basic conditions for excellent Bitto cheese are:
1- immediate transformation of the milk when still warm, without whipping;
2 - avoid overworking the caw in order to obtain more concentrated milk.
The cattle pasture near this small hut, so that the milk can immediately be transformed. Once the grass in this area is over, the tarpaulin is removed and the herdsman moves to another "calécc", leaving the pasture in perfect conditions for the following year.
Only the care for every single detail transforms this cheese in one of the greatest expression of rural work in the mountain.

"It might happen sometimes, while going hiking in the Prealpi Orobiche, to come across a small and run wild hut right in the middle of a meadow: four dry-stone walls about one meter high and some wooden stakes thereabouts. The hiker, especially if he comes from the town, too often glances at it cursorily, don't understand and moves on. Confronted with an example of ancient but still living history, he is left cold, feels nothing at all. Those stones, to be true, are not part of a half-destroyed hut. They are a "calécc", that is the heart of a summer station for cattle pasture. They are covered with a tarpaulin, and inside this primitive hut there's a fireplace for the production of cheese. Here the herdsmen have their meals and rest in the night, while their cows and goats are browsing in the nearby meadows. The "calécc" lives only for few days. Once the grass is over, the cattle move to another one, while the cheese is carried to the "casera", a sound spacious sheltered hut, where it lies on larch boards for the whole pasture season (three months). Near the "casera" there is normally a small shelter house built of local grey stone. This is a safer and more comfortable house for the herdsmen and their families.What's special about all this?
The method of cattle breeding, of turning milk into cheese, of ripening it, the life of herdsmen, they all are rooted in a time-honoured tradition which they are trying to keep alive. According to some historians, cattle-breeding was introduced in the Prealpi Orobiche by Celtic tribes, once the Romans drove them out of the Pianura Padana. They found themselves in valleys overwhelmed by high mountains and had to face the problem of a wide population sharing quite modest resources. How could they harness and make the most of the grass in the upper area? Cattle and goats were the answer. But this was still a partial answer, since a new problem soon arose: how could they get nourishing food from the milk produced in the upper area, where most of the people could obviously not follow the cattle? The Celts were expert magicians who practiced very ancient and mysterious rites. Among these rites there was one employing the curd obtained from the stomach of kids and lambs. Adding curd to milk and boiling it to vapour the liquid they got a solid product: fresh cheese. This fresh cheese was placed into special containers where it started to ferment. With the passing of time, it slowly became a hygienically sound and easily digestible product of high nutritional value. The invention of Bitto cheese - that amazing explosion of flavour we can still enjoy in its original taste - took a very long time and required countless patient attempts. The leaders of these rites were probably the pagan priests of that ancient people, those mysterious Druids whose memory has gone lost, and the "calècc" was probably the holy place where rites were held. Their gestures and movements had a meaning unknown to them as well. They however set off the mysterious process of fermentation, these men ascribed to an invisible but present and mighty god.

The invention of long-life cheese solved the problem of preserving this product both in time and place, and introduced a production cycle which could be repeated identical every year. This shows the skill and genius of herdsmen who always tried to keep a balance between exploitation of resources and their natural development and growth. In winter the cattle sheltered in comfortable sheds down in the valley, where it was fed on forage (from the meadows at a middle altitude). The fields down in the valley were planted with cereals and vegetables. When the climate started to get mild, the cattle and their calves - now strong enough to follow their mother - were led to higher pastures and they spent the whole summer there. At the end of the pasture season (first cool days in September), the herdsmen led their cattle back to the valley. At this time they also had the cheese produced in the previous months with them.

People hiking in the Prealpi Orobiche who show no interest at all in local tradition and history are bound to fail to understand the real charm of this area. Knowledge, moreover, might raise a growing awareness of their origins, which are choked with the dust of time. For this reason, keeping local tradition and history alive and making any effort to bridge the gap between them and the visitors, as the authors of this book are trying to do, is something useful and meritorious. The man of present time, who is approaching a new kind of civilization, still needs the man of the past, if he wants to preserve a sense of continuity, if he wants to understand fully the positive values of today's society, if he wants to keep the psychological balance that a continuous change might threaten, and appreciate in a higher intellectual way the beauties that nature and history continue to offer.

From "La Valtellina e i suoi formaggi", written by G.Amedei