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Where our mozzarella comes from
A family from Campania, a factory in Glynde, and seven dairy farms down the Fleurieu.
Fior di latte is on nearly everything we make. The Margherita. The Cheesus Christ. The Supremo. The Prosciutto Sando. Meadow’s. If you have eaten here, you have eaten it.
It is made about twenty minutes away, in Glynde.
The family
La Casa del Formaggio started in 1988 as a continental deli run by Gerardo and Rosa Cicchiello. Rosa made ricotta by hand out the back. People kept coming back for the ricotta rather than the groceries. Eventually the ricotta won and the deli became a dairy.
Both of them came from dairy farming families in Campania. Campania is the region Naples sits in. It is where the pizza we make comes from, and it is where fior di latte comes from. We did not plan that. We will take it.
What fior di latte actually is
Pasta filata. Spun paste. The curd is heated, then stretched and folded until it turns into long soft strands, then wound into a ball. That is the entire technique, and it is why good mozzarella pulls instead of crumbles.
What separates one from another is how you get the curd acidic enough to stretch in the first place.
The fast way is citric acid. Add it, the pH drops, you are stretching within the hour. Most of the mozzarella in this country is made that way and there is nothing illegal about it.
La Casa use starter cultures instead. Live bacteria, which take their time and make flavour while they work. It is slower, it costs more, and you can taste it. Most obviously on a Margherita, where there is nothing else on the pizza to hide behind.
The milk
Seven family farms around Mt Compass and Myponga, delivered fresh daily.
South Australian milk, less than an hour south of the shops, made into cheese in Adelaide, cooked in Brighton or Glenelg. Of everything on our menu, this is the shortest trip by a long way.
What La Casa del Formaggio makes for us
- Fior di latte
- Margherita, Cheesus Christ, Artie’s Special, Supremo, Prosciutto Sando, Meadow’s Sando, Junior’s
- Grated parmesan
- Margherita, Pizza Portafoglio
- Shredded mozzarella
- Sicilian bases
The honest version
In the Bottega story we listed the six things on our menu that come from Italy. This is the other side of that list.
The prosciutto comes from Italy because that is where it is good. The mozzarella comes from Glynde for exactly the same reason. Fresh cheese has a clock on it. A fior di latte that has spent six weeks on a boat is not the same product, whatever the label says.
Local when local is better. Imported when it is not. That is the whole rule and there isn’t a cleverer one underneath it.
The short version. The cheese on your pizza was milk on a farm at Mt Compass a few days ago, and it was made by a family who have been at it since 1988.
Order a Margherita. There are four things on it. You will taste this one.
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