Beyond Mozzarella: Getting to Know Italian Cheeses

Italians are rightly famous for their cheeses. Parmesan cheese is used the world over to flavor pasta dishes, as well as egg, rice, and meat dishes. You have hundreds of Italian cheeses to choose from. Most, however, aren't exported. The following sections describe some of the most popular and useful Italian cheeses. Some are sold in supermarkets. All are readily available at a good cheese shop or gourmet store.

Fontina
Real Fontina cheese from Valle d'Aosta in the far northwest of Italy is rich and creamy with a buttery, nutty flavor. This is a fine eating cheese. (You would never eat some cheeses as is, such as ricotta or mascarpone — they're just for cooking.) Let the fontina come to room temperature, and it becomes soft. Fontina never gets runny like brie, but it shouldn't be firm, either. You can eat Fontina as is, or because it melts so well, you can use it in sandwiches or pizzas.

Avoid Fontina from other sources. Most supermarkets carry a rubbery, bland Fontina cheese from Denmark or Sweden with a texture more like Cheddar and absolutely no flavor.


Gorgonzola
Italy's prized blue cheese can be made in various styles. Sometimes, Gorgonzola is dry and crumbly and has an intense blue cheese flavor similar to Roquefort, a popular blue cheese from France. Although this aged cheese is fine for nibbling, when cooking use the milder, creamier type of Gorgonzola called dolce or dolce latte —"sweet" or "sweet milk." The texture is creamy, and the distinctive blue cheese flavor isn't overpowering.

If you can't find Italian Gorgonzola dolce, you might try Saga Blue, a Danish blue cheese readily available in supermarkets. The flavor isn't as distinctive as Gorgonzola, but Saga Blue is milder and creamier than most supermarket blue cheeses.

Mozzarella
You can find so many styles of this important Italian cheese that figuring out where to start may seem hard. The original mozzarella was made from the milk of water buffalo and was called mozzarella di bufala, which is fairly hard to find in Italy and downright scarce elsewhere. It tastes best when incredibly fresh (no more than a few days old); it doesn't ship all that well.

Most fresh mozzarella (the fresh cheese is packed in water, not shrink-wrapped) is made from cow's milk and called fiore di latte. The flavor is milky and sweet, and the texture is springy, yet yielding. You should eat this cheese as is, in a simple mozzarella, tomato, and basil salad or perhaps marinated in olive oil and served as an antipasto. When cooked, it loses some of its delicacy.

When buying fresh mozzarella, try to get cheese that has been made that day. Mozzarella starts to go downhill after a day or two, and after three or four days, it's usually not worth eating. The cheese should look white and have a fresh, sweet smell. If the cheese smells at all sour or looks dried out, go to another shop. When you get fresh mozzarella home, use it immediately. If you must keep it for a few days, refrigerate the cheese in a container filled with enough very lightly salted water to cover the cheese.

Parmesan
Parmigiano-Reggiano is the king of Italian cheeses. This name is given to the finest aged Parmesan cheese produced in the Parma area in northern Italy. Although you may balk at paying $12 to $15 a pound for Parmigiano-Reggiano, most recipes call for very little, and the cheese delivers a big impact. Freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano (don't buy pregrated cheese; it dries out and loses much of its flavor) has a rich, buttery, nutty flavor. It's so good that Italians often break off tiny pieces from a hunk of Parmigiano-Reggiano and eat the cheese with drinks as an appetizer.

When shopping for Parmigiano-Reggiano, try to buy small wedges (about half a pound is a good size for grating) that have been freshly cut from a whole wheel of the cheese. A whole wheel weighs at least 65 pounds and has the words Parmigiano-Reggiano stenciled all around the rind. When buying wedges, check the rind to make sure that part of this stenciling appears — this is the only way to know that you're getting the real thing. You can wrap Parmigiano-Reggiano in waxed paper or plastic wrap and keep it in the refrigerator for several weeks, at least.


Pecorino
Pecorino is traditionally made from sheep's milk, although some manufacturers add some cow's milk to reduce the pungency or save money. In Italy, Pecorino is usually sold fresh or lightly aged and is served as an eating cheese. Young Pecorino isn't widely known elsewhere. Most of the exported Pecorino has been aged much longer. Like Parmesan, aged Pecorino is designed for grating, but it has a much saltier and more pungent flavor.

Most exported Pecorino is from the Rome area, hence the name Pecorino Romano. (Pecorino cheeses are also made in Sardinia, Sicily, and Tuscany.) Pecorino Romano is bone-white cheese that has an intense peppery flavor. Like Parmigiano-Reggiano, the words Pecorino Romano appear stenciled on the rind to make shopping for the authentic product easy. Many American-made Pecorino cheeses taste of salt and nothing else; you should avoid these American varieties.

Pecorino is best in dishes with assertive ingredients, such as capers, olives, or hot red pepper flakes. Pecorino also works well with vegetables like eggplant and zucchini. Pecorino is widely used in Sicilian and Sardinian dishes.

Ricotta
Like mozzarella, ricotta should be freshly made and consumed within a few days. It should be creamy and thick, not watery and curdish, like so many supermarket brands sold in plastic containers. In Italy, local cheese makers produce fresh ricotta with a dry, firm consistency (akin to goat cheese). The flavor is sweet and milky. This cheese is so perishable that it's rarely exported.

In the United States, you can get fresh, locally made ricotta in and near urban centers with large Italian-American populations. This cheese shares many qualities with the Italian versions. These U.S. versions are especially good in ricotta cheesecakes and pasta sauces or fillings, in which the cheese is the main ingredient.

You can use supermarket ricotta cheese, but it's bland and the texture mushy and unappealing. You might try draining supermarket ricotta in a fine-mesh strainer for an hour or two to remove some of the water. This can improve the texture, but you can't really do anything to improve its flavor.