Buffalo soldier

While the Italians would probably disagree, there’s no reason great mozzarella made with great local milk cannot be made here.

Once upon a time (around the 18th century) all mozzarella was made in Campania, Italy, and was done so using only buffalo milk.

You rarely meet people like Corey Jones. Unfortunately. “I don’t cry very often,” Jones says, standing in a muddy paddock surrounded by his horned beasties as he shares the edited version of his life story. “But I cried the day my parents gave up dairy farming.” Milking cows twice a day, every day – a sometimes miserable and not particularly profitable way to make a living – on their small dairy farm on the banks of the Murray River at Mypolonga, South Australia, eventually lost its novelty for Jones’ parents. But for Corey, who’d helped out in the dairy since he was big enough to wear gumboots and loved every minute, his folks’ decision to sell off the herd when he was 13 was heartbreaking.

Instead of rejoicing in his liberty, Jones spent the rest of his high school years working part-time for other dairy farmers in the district, such was his affinity with the animals and love of the work. He moved to Adelaide, played footy at SAFL level and finished a carpentry apprenticeship. But as soon as he could, at about 21, he moved back to Mypolonga and started working in dairies again, milking cattle, goats and buffalo (“not bloody sheep”), all the while ruminating, if you’ll excuse the pun, on how he might get the family dairy running again. The answer was buffalo.

Today, Jones and his wife Mollie have the family property, several extra plots they’ve bought and others they’ve leased; it’s all given over to a herd of 300 or so Riverine buffalo, the kind that produce high-calcium milk that’s in demand. Their small enterprise produces about 300,000 litres a year. Some of it goes into savoury cheeses/curds made by Kris Lloyd, one of SA’s best-known cheesemakers; some into a blue cheese made by the local La Vera cheese company and of course its traditional mozzarella di bufala.

Now, once upon a time (around the 18th century) all mozzarella was made in Campania, Italy, and was done so using only buffalo milk: a fresh, stretched curd cheese made up of very thin layers with an elastic texture when super fresh, becoming softer as it matures. These days, most stretched curd (a process requiring strong arms and lots of boiling water) sold as “mozzarella” is made with cow’s milk, or perhaps a buff/cow cocktail. It should probably be called “fior di latte” instead. It has a slightly different flavour, texture and nutritional profile.

According to Italian Cheese, a guide produced by Slow Food Editore, real mozzarella di bufala is “pearl-white in colour, has a slightly sour taste and a mossy or feral nose. When cut, it exudes a few droplets of a whitish whey-like liquid”. And while the Italians would disagree, there’s no reason great mozzarella made with great local milk cannot be made here.

And that will require great, dedicated dairy farmers, doing a job most of us slickers couldn’t handle for a day. Corey, we salute you.