A Little Cheese History
Even though several other cheeses are gaining popularity as the choice of pizza cheese, mozzarella is still by and large 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 that are interested in the origins of the pizza, it’s fun to know a little more about the history of the products that make it, starting with some of the very basics 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 is put through a curing process (similar to falling in a bucket of hot water). Though we know little about its history, we do know that the first mozzarellas were made not from cow’s milk, as is the most widely accepted norm now, but from the milk of water buffaloes.
In fact, true water buffalo mozzarella is considered one of the absolute best choices when cheese matters, but it is not a product that is widely produced commercially; 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 some areas of the mediterranian and from specialty food providers. Just don’t ask us who milks the buffalo!