Living With ADD

Mozzarella Really Matters

Despite many other cheeses are gaining popularity as the pizza cheese, mozzarella is still definitely considered “the” cheese for pizza. Even those pies that are sporting the latest and best cheese combinations almost always include mozzarella as a must, and the processed designer cheese products that have been developed specifically as pizza cheeses are only meant to be “new and improved” versions of the traditional mozzarella but would you settle for any less?

Even for those of you that prefer to Order Pizza On Your iPhone, it’s fun to know a little more about the history of the products that make it, starting with that all-important staple of the best pizza pie.

Mozzarella has predominantly been the most favored choice of pizza cheese. As with most cheeses, it has been widely considered that mozzarella was really created entirely by accident. Rumor tells the story that mozzarella was only created when cheese curds fell into a pail of boiling hot water.

But getting to the point about mozzarella, it is a mild cheese that undergoes a curing process not very different to dropping it into hot water off a table. The little we do know for sure about its real history is that the first mozzarellas were made not from cow’s milk, as is the most widely accepted norm now, but was derived from the rich milk of native water buffaloes.

In fact, true water buffalo mozzarella is considered one of the most marvellous choices to make when cheese matters, however it is not that readily available for everyone; instead, most pizza and delivery outfits make do with the still excellent fresh cow’s mozzarella. Despite the scarcity of mozzarella from buffalo, there are still ways to get it and use real water buffalo mozzarella, including in parts of Italy and from specialty food providers. The question then remains; Who milks the buffalo?