Eboli is a small Italian town of roughly 40,000 inhabitants in the province of Salerno, in the region of Campania to the west near the seacoast, famous throughout the world thanks to the book Christ Stopped at Eboli (Italian: Cristo si è fermato a Eboli), a memoir by the Italian painter and writer Carlo Levi published in 1945, giving an account of his internal exile due to his anti-fascist beliefs and activism from 1935-1936 to Grassano and Aliano, remote villages in the region of Lucania which is known today as Basilicata.
The title of the book comes from an expression by the people of Gagliano (the invented name in the story for Aliano) who say of themselves “Christ stopped short of here, at Eboli”, which means that they feel they’ve been bypassed by Christianity, by morality, by history itself – that they have somehow been excluded from the full human experience.
The book was immediately a great success and aroused debates and reflections on the relationship between peasant civilization and modernization, representing for Italian literature one of the masterpieces and, in Carlo Levi’s life, the beginning of his writing activity. The cover of the first edition reads: “As in a journey to the beginning of time, Christ Stopped at Eboli tells the discovery of a different civilization. It is that of the peasants of Southern Italy: out of history and progressive Reason, ancient wisdom and patient pain”.
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Book apart – worth reading if you want to find the key to otherwise incomprehensible historical, economic, political and social problems – why am I telling you should stop to Eboli? Because if you find yourself driving on the A2 motorway (also called the Mediterranean motorway or Salerno-Reggio Calabria), Eboli is one of the exits you can encounter along the route and where you should absolutely make a short stop. Here, in fact, you can find the best buffalo mozzarella. Maybe that’s why Christ stopped at Eboli.
Some good places where to buy an amazing mozzarella are already a few minutes off the motorway. This is the case, for example, of the Caseificio La Masseria, literally a couple of minutes away once you take the motorway exit for Eboli. Near Eboli, about 10 minutes by car, there is the town of Battipaglia, another place where you can find excellent mozzarella. Indeed, here you can find the best DOP (Protected Designation of Origin) buffalo mozzarella in Italy. It is that of Caseificio Jemma, which won the title in the Italian “Mozzarella Championship 2023”, repeating last year’s success. Also in Battipaglia, there is Tenuta Doria, which won third place in the ranking of the best DOP buffalo mozzarella 2023.
Not far from Battipaglia, more or less 30 minutes by car, there’s the village of Capaccio Paestum, where the best not-DOP buffalo mozzarella is found, that of Caseificio Vannulo. Also here are the Cooperativa Rivabianca, fourth place in the DOP category, and Dea Luna, second place in the not-DOP category. In short, if you drop by here and you are a dairy product lover, you won’t regret it. In addition to buffalo mozzarella, these dairies produce and sell delicacies such as burrata, buffalo ricotta, scamorza, caciocavallo, primosale (literally translated as “first salt”, which is a certain degree of maturation of the pecorino cheese, but the term also indicates a typical Sicilian pecorino cheese), stracciatella (basically the tasty and creamy filling of the burrata, a mix of stretched curd and cream), and many, many others.
The ranking of the best Italian DOP buffalo mozzarella 2023
- 1. Jemma from Battipaglia (Salerno)
- 2. Caputo from Teverola (Caserta)
- 3. Tenuta Doria from Battipaglia (Salerno)
- 4. Rivabianca from Capaccio Paestum (Salerno)
The ranking of the best Italian not-DOP buffalo mozzarella 2023
- 1. Vannulo from Capaccio Paestum (Salerno)
- 2. Dea Luna from Capaccio Paestum (Salerno)
- 3. Giuseppe Morese from Pontecagnano Faiano (Salerno)
- 4. Ilka from Salerno
The perfect homemade mozzarella for your cooking ideas: ingredients, recipe and detailed procedure with images
If you are a mozzarella lover and you’re not able to visit Italy, maybe you’re willing to make your own mozzarella at home. It’s not as hard as you think. Making your own mozzarella at home offers you many advantages: first of all, it lets you save money, second, you’re sure to have a fresh product, and last but not least, you never remain without it. The necessary ingredients to make your mozzarella are really few, simple and cheap. There are many different varieties of mozzarella that you can make at home, all different depending on the type of milk you use: from cow’s milk to buffalo’s milk, to sheep’s milk, and so on, and the procedures are all very similar to each other. Following step-by-step all the procedures described in this guide you can buy on Amazon by clicking the link below, you can make mozzarella cheese at home, having a fresh and genuine one for your cooking ideas.
The perfect homemade mozzarella for your cooking ideas: ingredients, recipe and detailed procedure with images
