They don’t yodel in Campania… but they make the world’s most heavenly cheese. And that is something to sing about!
While I waited in my favourite cheese store for my meagre order of Chevre Noir and my latest “sheep-cheese from Quebec” discovery, I was distracted by a sign that said they had “fresh” Mozzarella di Buffala direct from Campania. Since my folks are from Campania, and I have distinct memories of meeting the creatures that produce the milk that makes “real mozzarella” so special, I had to have me some. In case you don’t know, a buffala is a female water buffalo. How did these beauties that resemble oxen more than they resemble bison, get to the mountains north of Naples? Rumour has it they were shipped to the Roman Empire from Egypt during the reign of Cleopatra.
I love this cheese shop, because every time I go there, it triggers another set of long-lost memories and images that I have managed to bury deep in my sub-conscious. That afternoon, as I try to brace myself for another possible snow storm, I am warmed by memories of my eight-year old self, running wild through acres of chestnut groves along a mountainside just north of the village of my mother’s birth, with my cousin who looked after nonno’s milk-goat; of witnessing my first live birth – baby piglets, all tiny, pink and squeeling; and of drives down the mountain along hairpin curves, and suddenly rounding one particular curve and the valley opened up in full view, with the river (perhaps the Garigliano, but I am not quite sure right now) running the length of the valley.
From the passenger side of the car, I would marvel at the magnificently large “cattle” grazing lazily along its banks. So many of them. They had these wonderful sweeping horns that looked like a mass of gleaming chestnut hair, lacquered and parted in the middle. I asked my mammina what they were. She said they gave milk which was turned into fresh cheese. Well this baffled me, because they didn’t look anything like the cows we have here at home. Almost twice the size, definitely twice as beautiful. And I couldn’t imagine them allowing themselves to be milked. They seemed so peaceful and gracefully regal and somehow “above” their actual station as beast that feed us humans. And peaceful.
Years later, I found out we come from the “mozzarella c
apital of the world” and that those lovely creatures I had so admired along the river of my childhood dreams, are producing milk that is worth almost as much as an ounce of gold! Apparently, our region has another natural wonder that is worthy of a seat on the stock exchange … the old home base is apparently also the porcini-mushroom capital of the world! They even have a yearly festival to celebrate this treasured fungus!
