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So where have I found the pearls that fell from heaven? The answer is Capaccio, Italy. It's just a short train ride through fields, mountains, and palm trees on the track running south from Salerno. Not to all get off at the right station, this is farm country and the train is not hourly, so if you get off at the wrong station you could be there for a while or be facing a long walk. Learn from my mistakes my friends and be sure before the train starts to move again and some Italians says oh yeah that was your stop.
Ok, back to heaven. I've learned not to look for pearly gates, but pearls and braids of cheese, achromatic milk, and rich textured yogurt. You may think that I'm exaggerating about this whole idea that I've found heaven on a water buffalo farm in the southwest of Italy, but I am dead serious. We all know how I worship all things dairy, especially whole milk. So just imagine this for a minute- a world revolving around milk that makes, what I must admit to as, even more wonderful cheese and yogurt than that from cows.
In the Beginning . . .
Tenuta Vannulo, is not just a farm that's home to the water buffalo we imagine crossing raging rivers in southeastern Asia. It is also home to a busy little cheese factory, cheese shop, yoghurteria, leather shop, and kitchen and agricultural museum. The story on this bustling corner of paradise, begins with the dreams of a small boy revealed by Tenuta Vannulo's owner Antonio Palmieri.
When he was a little guy, Palmieri says he was always thinking about changing the farm. Back then is was all hand milking and the young Palmieri thought quite a bit about how he could change that. For the past 40 years, the Vannulo Dairy has been using automated milkers for their buffalo rather than that pesky had milking Palmieri remembers.
"If you look at people when they succeed at things, they start when they're a child, [great] violinists start at four or five years old." Palmieri leaned forward and continued, "That's why I started thinking that [changing from hand milking] at such a young age."
What may sound so simple, was far from it when this boyhood idea needed to become a reality. At that time, nobody used anything other than hands to milk buffalo. Sure cows could be hooked up to electric milkers, but buffalo were another story to these machinists. Palmieri's persistence eventually won him the first electric buffalo milkers and today his dairy has one of the most technologically advanced systems out there. Utilizing robotics and sensor system, the buffalo to move from eating to resting to milking on their own schedule.
The Journey
Just as Palmieri saw hand milking as something to be improved, he saw fair prices as nonexistent. Even though his family was producing superior quality milk, the price they were offered was the same as that given to lesser quality milks. To add to that, when the season change the price of mozzarella rises and falls. However the price of milk stayed constant. In 1988 Palmieri decided that rather than selling their milk, they could make their own cheese.
As Vannulo’s standards of quality became more renowned, Palmieri saw the possibility to do more with mozzarella with his respected milk and buffalos. Additions like the leather shop and yoghurteria were created. In the leather shop, patrons can not only buy handmade leather products, but also watch the crafters make these beautiful purses and bags from the buffalo hide.
At the yoghurteria, one can sit and enjoy a scoop of rich buffalo ice cream, buffalo custard, multiple pastries, or a simple bowl of buffalo milk yoghurt with kumquat marmalade. Now I’m sure you never thought the words buffalo and dessert could be used in the same sentence, but i just have to say the proof is in the yoghurt.
The Tangent
I can’t tell you how much I miss the sweet and sour taste of Tannulo’s buffalo yogurt. Mr, Palmieri offered me a bowl of it himself as we sat in his office and chatted via his right hand woman and translator, Andrea. As the bowl of gelatinous dairy arrived, looked like any other classic yogurt: white with a bit of gray cloudiness, glossy top, and thin, slightly-watery edge. However, I should have known from the bright orange kumquat syrup oozing into the water that this was going to a little different.
Imagine this: a spoonful of creaminess that feels rich, slightly grainy, with a refreshing combination of intense dairy, tartness, sweetness and tang. I loved it! The kumquats were slightly chewy and sweet like candy, making them the perfect condiment to thick rich and sour yogurt. Mmmmmm! As I took bite after bite I wished I could have just stopped and devoured the bowl of loveliness rather than pacing myself and slowly eating petite spoonfuls.
Talking With The Man
I feel so at home here that I think I could cry. Behind Mr. Palmieri is a large, close-up print of a buffalo licking it’s nose. Something only a true farmer would be proud to display. His happy wrinkled face and soft eyes gaze across the desk as he leans into every syllable he speaks. His cracked leather chair matches perfectly with the hard work he does. And the fact that the wall behind me is one giant window that lets the farm into the office, seems more than fitting for this man.
Palmieri says his favorite part of raising buffalo is the breeding. He says that even with all these technologies used in breeding and milking “without the buffalo there would be nothing.” To Palmieri, the Bufala is the “mother of everything”, and without this simple creature this would never exist. The buffalo are everything.
This love for the buffalo can bee seen in every cow’s name. Rather than be given at birth, these names are given when the buffalo gives her first birth. Ranging from random numbers to traditional names and even words, such as “absurd” these girls all have a name from the big man.
With that said, it wasn’t any surprise to me when Palmieri said the most meaningful par of his job was the community. “It’s a pleasure to see people come in and pay for their mozzarella and then say thank you. Usually when you pay you don’t need to say thank you.” He said with open eyes and a large hand gestures. His pleasure is in seeing the people enjoy what he does here.
As Palmieri reflected, I could see the care in his eyes. This place is more than just a job or a tradition. It seems to Palmieri the buffalo are a gift and a legacy. He finished saying that “It’s the result of a meaningful life if you do something that makes people happy. You can’t count that in money.”
Talking with Palmieri felt like I was talking to family. Although we spoke different languages, our hearts both spoke the language of a love for the farm and the gift that we see it as.
The Mozzarella As art of my visit today, I was allowed to step inside the cheese factory. The small room was not much more than a few silver tanks, a tile floor, and several men dressed in white. Their motions moved from stirring to dumping, and finally pinching. To make mozzarella the chief cheese maker and his assisting cheese makers much work together to pinch off the rounds of soft hot cheese freshly pulled from the hot liquid.
Unlike our supermarket stunt-cheeses, fresh mozzarella should never be refrigerated. Instead just leave it on the counter int it’s liquid and consume within three days. Buying in bulk is not an option, but who wants old cheese anyway when fresh is so close at hand.
At Vannulo, they run out of cheese every day. They can never keep up. In an effort to spread around the wealth around, they limit each person to 5kg (about 11 pounds) of mozzarella. Yes, 11 pounds. I don’t know how, other than a large party, one person could take care of that much cheese.
The Last Few Things
As I finished the last few bites of mozzarella on my plate, Mr. Palmieri had a smile as big as mine. I’m not sure if my translated description of the cheese pleased or surprised him, but he seems to be excited no matter. I savored the taste of what was likely to be the last time I’d taste this unique food for quite a while as Andrea explained that it’s said buffalo mozzarella has 99 different flavors. How it’s just a flavor short of 100 I don’t know, but I believe, with all sincerity, that they are right.
Until then I’d never thought a cheese could have more flavor than a meal.
Photos courtesy of Tenuta Vannulo and http://www.brocoli-illustre.com/recettes-italie/petit-atlas-des-produits/la-mozzarella-di-bufala/
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