Buffalo mozzarella

The story of ’a muzzarella

Mozzarella di Bufala Campana PDO, ’a muzzarella to Neapolitans, is a fresh stretched-curd cheese made only from whole buffalo milk. The name comes from the cheesemaker’s gesture as he “mozza” – cuts off – the stretched curd by hand to shape it.

According to the most widely accepted theory, buffalo reached Sicily at the end of the tenth century and spread across the South under the Normans and the Swabians: the marshes of the Volturno and Sele plains were the ideal habitat. In the twelfth century the monks of San Lorenzo in Capua offered pilgrims a cheese called “mozza”. By the fourteenth century buffalo cheeses were sold in the markets of Naples and Salerno, and the word “mozzarella” first appears in writing in 1570, in the recipe book of Bartolomeo Scappi, cook to the papal court.

In the eighteenth century the Bourbons set up an experimental herd and dairy at the Reggia di Carditello. In 1884 Matilde Serao already writes “muzzarella”, the Neapolitan way, when describing the pizzas sold in the street. Mozzarella di Bufala Campana has been a DO since 1993 and a PDO since 1996. It is made in the provinces of Caserta and Salerno, in parts of those of Naples and Benevento, and in some municipalities of Lazio, Molise and Puglia.