ricotta di bufalicious

There's mozzarella di bufala, of course. Everybody knows about that. Not so easy to get in the US (though not super-difficult, either), but something you see all over the place in Italy. There's a dairy up the street from me that trucks great mozz in from Campania every morning, and I've been picking up a ball or two every so often. Who doesn't like buffalo mozzarella? Nobody, that's who.

As far as I knew, mozzarella was the only cheese you could really make from buffalo milk. That is, until this last week when I had the ricotta as part of a cheese plate at Vinando, a great wine bar in the Ghetto of Rome. I thought it was some sort of mild goat cheese at first: pure white, firm but ever so slightly creamy. Then I tasted it.

In general, my feeling is that people who describe food as "a revelation" should be stoned to death with the collected works of Elizabeth David. It's such a stupid cliche. But it's a stupid cliche I'm trying hard to avoid when describing this cheese. Creamy, yes, but with a slight graininess on the tongue. A little bit sweet, not sugary, but with the unctuous sweetness of really good pure milk that hasn't been sissied down by taking out all the fatty goodness. And-- this is the part that just blew me away-- a fruitiness to it (seriously, like apples) that isn't like any other cheese I've tasted before.

My complaint is: why was I not informed of the existence of ricotta di bufala until this week? I demand that the entire nation of Italy be called to account for keeping me in the dark until now, condemning me to decades of pointless buffalo-free existence, and leading me to believe that ricotta had to be a bland, dull, flavorless mush, fit only to live in a tub and only emerge when it's pimped up with sugar and stuffed in a pastry, or slapped between layers of watery lasagna. Damn you, Italy! (But bless you, too.)