Tracing mozzarella back to the buffalo

How and when water buffalos first arrived in Italy from Asia remains something of a mystery.

Some historians believe they were brought here by Arab merchants in the 8th century. Others insist another horde of medieval seafarers — the Normans — imported them a few centuries later. But what isn’t in doubt is that these large, semi-aquatic bovines help produce one of the most prized of all Italian cheeses.

We’re talking about buffalo mozzarella, and more specifically Mozzarella di Bufala Campana, a type of hand-stretched curd cheese that boasts a prestigious PDO (Protected Designation of Origin) status and has to be made to a strict set of criteria.

Chief among the must-dos is using 100 per cent fresh whole milk from the Italian Mediterranean water buffalo — a species whose ancestry traces back to the wild native water buffalo of the Indian subcontinent.

It’s claimed that around 350,000 water buffalo now live in Italy with the majority grazing in the countryside of Campania, the region flowing south of Naples, where we kicked off our 13-day Collette tour of southern Italy. After a riveting first week of the trip, which shone a spotlight on that effervescent Neapolitan city and the Amalfi Coast, we have ventured south along the SS18 — a road dubbed the “Mozzarella Highway” due to the raft of working water buffalo farms clustered either side of it.

In the town of Paestum, a place blessed with ancient Greek ruins, we pull in at Azienda Agricola Barlotti, a farm that has been in the same family since the early 1900s and hosts guided tours, tastings and sit-down meals.

We’re greeted by Andrea, a friendly young man who explains, in excellent English, the history and the day-to-day business of the Barlotti’s enterprise.

We’re allowed within spitting distance of the 400 or so resident buffalo, who are divided into variously pungent open-air and covered areas. The cutest are the calves, only a few weeks old and staring at us doe-eyed from their solo paddocks. The older herds are in their collective barns, mostly dozing or hungrily munching away. They’re fed only natural products from the farm’s fields — alfalfa, corn, hay and straw.

As we walk by the railings, one of the bulls makes his presence felt, noisily attempting to mount one of the adult females from the rear. Andrea says a fully-grown bull can weigh up to 800kg and plays a key role in the farm’s reproduction process. So, naturally, do the females, who are significantly smaller — they weigh up to around 500kg — but provide the raw, protein-rich milk that fuels the farm’s fresh and aged cheeses.

About 160 buffalo are milked twice a day here, yielding, on average, about six-to-eight litres each.

Mozzarella is the pride and joy, its name deriving from the Italian verb “mozzare” — which means to cut off or sever — a reference to the method traditionally used by cheesemakers hand-stretching and cutting off the curd, often manipulating it into round balls or embedding it to the bases of sourdough pizzas.

At this farm, the mozzarella is conjured within 15 hours of milking and we savour some deliciously fresh and flavoursome portions at lunch in the Barlotti restaurant, which is adjoined by a lovely garden terrace where the scents are more floral than fetid.

A breeze tickles the leaves of the olive trees and looming far beyond are the peaks of the Cilento mountain range, which is part of a national park and UNESCO biosphere reserve.

Besides the classic mozzarella, we try a smoked version of this moist, creamy cheese, plus a few varieties of ricotta (which translates to “recooked” in Italian and is essentially a byproduct made by reheating the whey that’s left over from mozzarella and other cheeses).

For the mains, we’re served handmade ravioli stuffed with buffalo ricotta alongside fusilli pasta coated with a fresh tomato sauce. Then, for dessert, there’s chocolate chip and ricotta crumble.

“This is a light lunch, by Italian standards,” says Dario, our Collette tour manager, and he’s only half-joking.

Quality and quantity-wise, the food was bellissimo (beautiful). The local wine — the fruity red Aglianico di Barone — was very good too. And despite espressos perking our group up a little, it’s clear that most of us will be having a snooze on our tour coach as we head to our next destination, almost three hours from here: the incredible troglodyte city of Matera.

+ Steve McKenna was a guest of Collette. They have not influenced this story, or read it before publication. fact file + Beginning in Naples, and including a visit to a dairy farm, Collette’s 13-day Amalfi Coast to Puglia tour runs on dates between March and December, priced from $8249 per person (based on two sharing). See gocollette.com/en-au + If visiting independently, tours and tastings can be booked at barlotti.it. + To help plan a trip to Italy, see italia.it/en.