Really fresh mozzarella
Every so often I’m reminded of the best mozzarella cheese I’ve ever eaten. It happened again yesterday. I was walking down the cheese/eggs aisle in Safeway and found myself face to face with the American supermarket version of fresh mozzarella. It took me back to my last visit to Florence, Italy.
It was early July 2003 and my mother, sister and I were staying at a hotel located in a very old large building. As I sat on the hotel’s veranda in the evenings I was treated to live orchestral music wafting from Piazza Santo Spirito below. I felt like I was in a Merchant Ivory film.
Back to the mozzarella. We ate dinner at a restaurant in the square pretty much every night we were there. In part, I think we ate there because of the mozzarella. Our first night in Florence, we ordered mozzarella as an appetizer. It came split open, lightly salted and drizzled with olive oil. I was forever entranced by the smooth, creamy richness of the center of that loaf of cheese. From the outside, the mozzarella looked pretty average. But when it was split open, the mozzarella revealed the fresh, creamy, salty interior. When we went to the restaurant the next day, I ordered the mozzarella again and ate at least half of it by myself. Maybe I ate the whole thing, I don’t remember.
Yesterday, instead of being a mozzarella snob and not trying the prepackaged white blob, I bought it. It looked fairly fresh and I selfishly grabbed one from the back with a late sell by date. Vowing not to let it get old in the fridge, I opened the package, split the cheese down the center, sprinkled it with kosher salt and drizzled it with my good extra virgin olive oil.
After letting it rest for a few minutes, I dug in. Knowing not to have my hopes too high, I wasn’t terribly disappointed. The cheese still couldn’t really compare with fresh Florence mozzarella, but it was good. It wasn’t tangy, but it didn’t have the oozing fresh cream in the center either. I think I’m going to have to make my own to get it as fresh as I want it. Or maybe I’ll have to make it back to Italy.
By the way, I snapped a photo of the cheese last night, but it looked quite unappetizing. So, no photo today.
Dear Rochelle,
unfortunately,
most if not all Mozzarella here in the states is made from homogenized cow’s milk. The great cheese you are eating in florence is neither homogenized or of bovine, it is water buffalo milk, big milkfat and low whey yields. We raise our cows to produce lots of milk w/ little fat. Artisan cheesemakers like to starve their livestock for a period to induce their stock to release fats from their systems to produce a rich mylactic formula…making for great, aromatic, soft, velvety cheese. When the FDA allows us to eat as the euros do then we will produce products as good or better than they do.
Till then, try and make your own and buy some cheap Tavola Rossa to go with it.
have fun…
Tim Putnam
Tim,
Thanks for sharing. I sought out water buffalo mozzarella here and it still wasn’t as good, but it was probably just too old. Differences in government regulations between here and European countries fascinate me. As for the Tavola Rossa, I might get some now.