- Christina Pickard
A Morning of Mozzarella
A few weeks ago I received an email from Douglas Blyde, a sommelier and wine and food journalist, saying he was helping to champion the campaign for the spread of Buffalo Mozzarella and would I like to attend a tasting? Of all the campaigns I could think of to champion (world peace, the slowing of global warming, eradicating poverty…), spreading the word about Buffalo Mozzarella would not honestly make the list. However, my knowledge of mozzarella was limited. I knew it tasted great on pizza and bruschetta, and that it came in a watery ball that always made a mess in my kitchen when the package was opened. And that was about it. So I agreed to go along to the tasting out of curiosity, because as a wine gal, a knowledge of food is also very important. Plus what could be better than eating balls of cheese before 10 in the morning?!
It may seem like I’ve haven’t painted a rosy picture of this event, but let me make clear my enjoyment of it. Because the very fact that it was slightly scattered and overcomplicated (but passionate nonetheless) made it inherently Italian. Wonderfully Italian. If everything went according to plan, like a well-oiled machine, it would’ve been a German tasting. Ok, I didn’t actually learn much about Buffalo Mozzarella except that it’s from Campania and is made from buffalo’s (a smaller version, more like a big horned cow than the hairy herds grazing the plains in the Wild West films) milk, so perhaps in future a brief video about how it’s made, etc would be far simpler. However this was a tasting to champion the authenticity of Buffalo Mozzarella, and what better way to do that than to make the event itself authentically Italian…whether they meant to or not!