+7 Bussu’s Home of Cheese
Bussu’s Home of Cheese
Bussu’s Home of Cheese
Bussu’s Home of Cheese
Bussu’s Home of Cheese
Bussu’s Home of Cheese
Bussu’s Home of Cheese
Bussu’s Home of Cheese
Bussu’s Home of Cheese
Bussu’s Home of Cheese
At the piercing sound of the six o’clock bells, 7-year-old Luciano Bussu smiled knowingly–it was time.
He walked deliberately through the long hallway to the back of his parents’ country-style home. There he entered the cheese kitchen, a room with reddish-brown brick walls that were nearly a foot wide and void of decorations or family photos. The spring heat trapped in the room clung to his olive-colored skin, causing small beads of sweat.
Luciano carried cheese molds and a container of sheep milk to a steel table at the center of the earthen floor where a tall steel pot sat on a burner. Pride washed over him: For the first time on his own, he was going to make Sardinian cheese and ricotta, two of the cheeses his parents had been producing and supplying to local shops since 1941.
His parents had left for the evening and had told him, joking, that if they didn’t return by 6 p.m. he’d be in charge of making the cheese. Little Luciano had taken them literally.
The steel pot that would hold the sheep milk towered over his small stature, preventing him from seeing over the top. But with a wooden stool, his small hands, patience, and the recollection of many hours spent watching his parents work, he refused to let the size of the task or the pot intimidate him. With focused eyes and calculated movements, the young boy successfully poured and cooked the milk, formed the wheel of cheese, and made the fresh ricotta.
His parents, on their return, were astounded.
Bussu’s confidence and willingness to stand tall in the face of challenges followed him into adulthood. Now 55, Bussu is the owner of Casa del Formaggio di Bussu, a milestone on Via Mazzini that for 31 years has weathered economic storms and changing tastes to remain a stalwart source of cheese and other Marche products for its loyal customers. Bussu’s focus on relationships, both with his family and clients, keeps his shop alive and bustling with activity. And through his devotion to high-quality local suppliers, Bussu has not only strung together a community of people but continues to preserve a myriad of Italian family traditions.
“I was born in cheese,” Bussu says, shifting aside cream-colored beaded curtains to unlock an aged wooden door. It’s now morning and Bussu is opening his shop for the day. He pulls out a crate overflowing with bright red strawberries and a box with golden peaches propped inside, placing them on the sidewalk beside the front door.
“I started making cheese when I was very little, so I grew up doing it,” he says as he props a scarlet red stand with a list of featured products by the window. In the wood-framed window, as always, he has displayed honey, truffle sauce, and wine. “It came very naturally to me to open this place just to sell the products that we had been making our whole life.”
Now finished with setting up, he walks through the front door shaded by two beige awnings. The brown, slightly faded words “Casa del Formaggio Di Bussu” stretch across the awnings, welcoming clients into the quaint shop.
Bussu and his family, originally from Sardinia, moved to Urbino in 1965 for a job offer. Once in the small town, they conformed to local tastes to satisfy their clients. Instead of aged Sardinian cheeses, they made younger, fresher casciotta d’Urbino and pecorino. From the leftover whey, they made ricotta, which was also used as a cake ingredient. They relied on their hands as tools. And for better quality products, their cheese was produced from sheep that were only fed organic products.
“It’s a lot of work behind it,” Bussu says, now leaning on the cluttered granite counter by the cash register. The wooden walls and shelves cast a golden warmth throughout the store. An assortment of different products, such as peanuts, bread, cheese, and other items can be seen. “It can sometimes take a village to make cheese,” he says, “especially since some cheese requires more accuracy than others.”
“He gives his shop a good reputation and casts a good light on the community around him,” says honey supplier Fabrizio Pesare.
The door clatters open and an elderly woman with feathered gray hair pushes through the beaded curtains. Bussu, tall and lanky, greets the woman with a warm smile. As he puts her cheese in a white paper bag, they share anecdotes from each other’s day and laugh.
This client of 31 years, Maria Romana, has known Bussu since he was one year old and says he’s like a son to her. She remembers Bussu’s family fondly, and says in the mid-60s, when they moved to Urbino, they used to supply her family’s shop with cheese. To this day, Romana continues to visit and buy from him.
“I come back here because I like it and because Bussu and I are friends,” Romana says, with a soft smile in Bussu’s direction. “I don’t really like supermarkets. I only go there when I’m in hot water. I [rather] come here because there is a friendship that unites us, it’s not just buying things.”
Bussu spent his high school summers helping his parents produce cheese at their home in the countryside of Urbino. Even though as a child Bussu admired his parents and their craft, as he grew up, he explains that he wanted to do something “bigger” and make his parents proud. After graduating from high school, he went on to pursue law at the University of Urbino “Carlo Bo.” But after a year, he realized he no longer wanted to study and came back to make cheese with his family.
In 1988, he opened Casa del Formaggio di Bussu.
“I wanted to be able to get my own money and build my future on my own,” Bussu says. “I think that is a very important lesson in life, to learn how to get by without other people’s help.”
With a faraway look in his eyes, Bussu recalls the vivid memory of arranging his products in the glass case near the door on the day his shop first opened. From the start, he was motivated to line the shelves with nothing but top-quality products, mostly his family’s cheese. Each Thursday, Bussu went to his family’s farm where his brothers, Sebastiano and Michele, and his parents helped him produce it.
In 1998, his parents stopped making cheese and moved to Tuscany, just east of Urbino. This left Bussu with the task of finding another cheese-maker to supply his shop.
“I was looking for a supplier for a long time. It’s hard to find a farmer that makes the cheese the proper way,” Bussu says sharply. “There are many farmers who rush the process just to get a good income. You have to be willing to work hard. The client is the final judge and knows if the cheese is actually good or not.”
He gestures to a wheel of cheese enclosed in a dimly lit glass case. On it is a label with a bright green graphic of a mountain, thick red letters that read “Martarelli” and the word “Formaggi” in white cursive font. After years of having suppliers who didn’t quite meet his standards, Bussu found this family business about a year ago. With its use of raw sheep milk from organically fed sheep, the taste is the closest to the “perfect supplier” he was in search of.
“Cheese-making is a job that’s becoming less and less big every year because it’s like an ancient job, so people tend to not do it anymore,” Bussu says.
In 2007, Bussu and similar shopkeepers were hit with a double whammy: the global economic crisis and the rise of supermarkets. Many stores around him folded, but he prevailed by incorporating other products in his shop.
“I tried to adapt my business to the request of the clients and the social context that surrounded me,” Bussu says. “As supermarkets were opening everywhere, I had to keep up with them so I started carrying top-quality items you can’t find in supermarkets.”
Now, various food items flood the store, many representing Italian family traditions. Bussu points to the window, where a tall bottle of Gambelli wine from a Marche winery sits. The winery dates back to 1898. Next, he gestures to a glass jar of Acqualagna Tartufi truffle sauce made entirely with Italian ingredients and ancient techniques.
“There’s also Gabannini’s honey,” Bussu goes on, smiling. Bussu points to an assembly of honey jars on a wooden platform by his cash register. Marino Gabannini, a man who had a unique fascination with bees as a child, first began making honey in 1913. Since then, the company has expanded, and the family of beekeepers aim to respect nature’s course, bees, and their territory to create top-quality products.
Fabrizio Pesare, Gabannini’s great-grandson who now works with the factory, says he admires the positive impact Bussu’s shop has had on Urbino and other residents in the Marche region.
“He gives his shop a good reputation and casts a good light on the community around him,” Pesare says. “He’s always looking for high-quality local products. For instance, instead of buying from mass markets he looks for ham from Italian pigs. Many shops have tried to imitate him and have failed.”
Over the years, Bussu’s customers have grown to trust his choice in products.
“If you go to a super market you can find Sicilian products and products from all over Italy,” says Anna Rosa, a client of 31 years. “But here you can find the real products made in Urbino by people from Urbino [and the Marche region] so that’s actually a unique thing.”
“There are many farmers who rush the process just to get a good income. You have to be willing to work hard. The client is the final judge and knows if the cheese is actually good or not,” says store owner Luciano Bussu.
Bussu’s customers are like his family, and he puts his family above everything. A swarm of childlike illustrations are taped to the wooden walls behind his counters. One is a crayon drawing of a young girl with a light blue shirt and black hair, standing in a grassy field. A speech bubble beside her reads: “venite tutti alla casa del formaggio di Bussu Luciano.” This translates to “come all to Luciano Bussu’s home of cheese.” The drawings were made by his two daughters, now 13 and 18, when they were younger. Bussu has yet to take them down.
It’s now mid-day on Thursday, the day he closes early to have a long meal and visit with his family. Sunlight casts a soft glow through the honey jars and wine bottles propped in the window. Bussu brings in the crates of strawberries and boxes of other assorted fruit. He snaps the sandwich sign closed and brings it inside. He removes his apron, and then turns off the lights. He lets out a subtle sigh of relief. Finally, Bussu locks the door and begins to head up the street to his car to return to what matters most to him–his family.
“I’m one of those people that doesn’t live to work,” Bussu says. “I work in order to live.”
This article, by Jazmine Otey, won a Raffie Award for Best Magazine Story Package. Translation of interviews and other language assistance by University of Urbino students Francesca Massari and Beatrice Burani. This article also appears in Urbino Now magazine’s La Gente section. You can read all the magazine articles in print by ordering a copy from MagCloud.
