Buffalo mozzarella, part 2: the source
You’ll know when you’ve arrived in buffalo mozzarella country by all the roadside signs advertising it. It’s kind of like driving through the American South and seeing all those billboards for fireworks superstores, except the southern Italians are excited about cheese instead of explosives. Just a small cultural difference.
The signage starts as soon as you enter Battipaglia.
When I first lived in Bologna back in the 90s, I asked an Italian guy once why the good stuff was called “mozzarella di bufala”. Were there actually buffalo hiding out somewhere in Italy, or was this simply a misnomer along the lines of the famous wings, having nothing to do with actual buffaloes? He didn’t know. Poor thing, he was from the North.
On this trip I finally got a chance to see real live Italian mozzarella-producing buffalo. It was at Vannulo, a buffalo dairy. In addition to mozzarella and other cheeses (such as ricotta, another local specialty), they sold yogurt and gelato. There’s also a cute coffee bar. I’m not sure if the milk they put in their cappuccinos comes from the buffalo or not.
Bologna is a fabulous city, and it is nicely located in the center of northern Italy, with easy train rides to tons of other great cities and towns, too. And as far as food and drink are concerned, it’s hard to do much better anywhere.