Water buffaloes pose for a picture as they receive their daily massage at the the Vannulo Farm stable. (Fulvio Paolocci/GlobalPost)

Where the buffalo moan (with pleasure)

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At Vannulo Farm in Campania, they believe happier buffalos make better mozzarella.

By Angelica Marin

Published: July 20, 2009 06:54 ET

CAPACCIO, Italy — In the Middle Ages, Neapolitan monks offered fresh buffalo cheese to pilgrims visiting the monastery. Later, the word “mozzarella” would show up in a menu for the Pope dating from 1570.

Today, in the southern region of Campania, buffalo mozzarella is easy to come by and represents a multi-billion-dollar industry. Unlike the processed cow-milk cheese that strings from our pizza, these milky balls are slowly processed for hours until they become a natural concentration of fat, protein, minerals and flavors.

“I always say mozzarella has 99 flavors,” said Antonio Palmieri, a mozzarella producer from Campania. “You can taste those flavors from the milk itself, without having to add anything, neither salt nor oil.”

His purist philosophy has made him a millionaire. Insistent on making the perfect buffalo mozzarella, Palmieri has transformed his organic farm into a kind of free-range buffalo resort, with neither the smell nor look of a typical buffalo farm.

Palmieri likes to break boundaries. After spending years perfecting his organic mozzarella, he invented the first-ever buffalo-milk-based yogurt and gelato. This has made his customers uncommonly loyal.

On a recent summer day, I tasted the apricot yogurt on a spongy brioche, followed by a creamy hazelnut gelato. As I stood at the bar, the slender and tall Palmieri walked in wearing a white Panama hat, and sipped his coffee under a heavy gray moustache. Star-struck customers rushed to greet him, yelling, “complimenti, complimenti,” Italian for congratulations.

“Naively, people think good mozzarella is born from the hands of a skilled cheese maker,” said Palmieri. “That too, but most of all it comes from quality milk.”

At the Vannulo Farm, which Palmieri’s family has owned for three generations, tradition has never gotten in the way of innovative thinking. Last year they applied Swedish technology, invented for milking cows, to the sturdy, but much friendlier water buffalo.

Operated by computerized machines, the milking stations allow buffalos to be milked at their convenience. Like pudgy ladies waiting in line to deposit at the bank, female buffalos wait for their turn at each of the milking stations. Every buffalo wears a chip around her neck that contains personal information and an exact map of her teat.

Comments:

4 Comments.

Posted by david wayne osedach on July 20, 2009 14:48 ET

Sounds like Kobe beef. I wonder where you can buy it in the US?

Posted by gilserique on July 24, 2009 17:59 ET

I must mention that a good portion of Mozzarella is made of milk from water buffalos raised in the Amazon Basin. Bufalos here are farmed freely which has an immense impact in Varzea forest(an Amazonian ecossystem that represents only 5%of the entire basin), IT contributes to global warming, green-house effect and also threats an endless number of species of insects, fish and other vertebrates including human beings. Please, BOYCOTT ANY MOSSARELLA MADE OF MILK PRODUCED IN THE AMAZON!!!

Posted by cpol on July 31, 2009 12:32 ET

Ms. Marin, charming article. Does Vannulo Farm market their mozz in the US? I have a serious bufalo mozz craving after this...

Posted by john649 on January 2, 2010 13:10 ET

the difference here is that they treat their animals with love. Treat ANYTHING with love and it will prosper. The wide spread use of factory farms is based on pure greed and they will eventually fail as ppl realize the rising health problems, environmental problems and inhumane conditions are unsustainable.