Issue 06 | Agerola, Costiera Amalfitana
Pack your swimsuit and a pair of comfortable shoes for the 600 step-long hikes!
Welcome back to the Italy Deep Dive, the narrative newsletter by La Panza Piena, and thank you for tagging along! This week’s newsletter delves into a very unique place I had the pleasure of discovering a few months ago, the lesser-known side of the Costiera Amalfitana. This is also going to be the last newsletter for a while, as I’m taking a break from writing to dive deep into some new places, and come back with (hopefully) a lot of extra knowledge in September.
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In the small mountain town of Agerola, above the Amalfi Coast, an ancient cheese-making tradition continues to thrive and end up on our plates: fior di latte. For those who aren’t familiar with the product, I’m talking about the cheese (a type of mozzarella), not the gelato flavour—although that’s equally delicious.
Let’s dive
The Amalfi Coast is world renowned for its picturesque landscapes, crystal blue seas and beautiful towns which climb up the steep slopes. What you probably don’t picture when thinking of the costiera are the Monti Lattari, the steep mountain range which forms the entire landscape, running from Naples to Salerno. The range’s name originates from the Italian word for milk (latte), as the slopes are home to thousands of cows - razza agerolese - which produce exceptional milk.
From this milk, the expert cheese makers and gatekeepers of the immense cultural heritage - whose know-how has been passed down through generations - mold delicious fior di latte by hand. Fior di latte is a fresh, stretched curd (pasta filata) cheese which on the palate is tender, soft and with wonderful milk flavours.
Alongside the high quality milk, there are three other ingredients necessary to produce fior di latte: water, curd and the microclimate. Water plays a fundamental role as it is added to the cheese in order to stretch it into the characteristic mozzarella and fior di latte shape and consistency. Once stretched, the cheese maker manually forms balls of cheese, braids or small nuggets, an act known as “mozzare”, which is also what gives mozzarella its name.
In Campania - the region within which the Amalfi Coast lives - there are strict traditions and customs regarding the way mozzarella and fior di latte are consumed, and disregarding them will cause you to be the butt of the joke. Let me avoid you some trouble by sharing the rules with you. Firstly, the above mentioned fresh cheese should not be stored in a fridge, and secondly, it must be run under a tap of hot water just before being served. The former can be easily disregarded if one does not plan on consuming the fior di latte on the same day it was bought, whereas the second rule must be followed, as the warmth of the water allows all the aromas within the cheese to come to life and flourish, resulting in a better tasting experience.