Bunissima

I was having one of those days, feeling melancholic about making a good home made pizza with whatever toppings I wanted, wherever I wanted them and in the quantity I wanted them.
So, I go to the store and buy everything. Everything except the mozzarella. The local stores never have mozzarella. And if one has it, it won’t be for long. I don’t understand why. If people bought it as long as the store had it, it means it sells. But probably not fast enough for them, since they do not bring it back, because it might keep the shelf space that was other way dedicated to the pre-packaged, sliced cheese, 4 pieces a package- that surely costs less and sells faster. Also makes you eat less. 4 in one, as they’d say.
So, after buying everything for my deee-licios, wonderful pizza ( I am a great cook, to be honest), I see that they were having some more cheeses behind the counter and since I could not see everything they had there because the lady kept going back and forth juggling with tomatos, I asked if they had any mozzarella, by chance.
And, being a national and international issue, I just had to be informed. Also probably because i was one of the two people that had asked about mozzarella there in the entire year. The lady at the counter, selling the cheeses and fruits and all, was not just a simple … lady at the counter. No sir’ee, she was also very informed and up to date with the latest news in the food industry and consumer safety.
Not only like a mother, but as a person responsible with the health of the consumer society, she let me know that mozzarella has now been withdrawn from the market because it contains some carcinogenic ingredients or protein of sorts, and untill this is not proven differently, it will not be on the market anymore. So, deeply doubting that fact, and the forthcoming original pizza I was going to make, I realized with regret that there was no mozzarella in that place and in any of the local stores I usually go to. So, I cooperatively asked what kind of ro-ma-ni-an cheese I could get to replace the, oh, so unique, mozzarella. She recommended Penteleu, a soft cheese.
Still hoping to find mozzarella, as bad as it was for my health (pizza is not complete without mozzarella no matter what type of cancer it can bring) I went to the other store. No surprise there, and no mozzarella either. So I got some milk. No, no, I wasn’t gonna make my own mozzarella, I don’t have them… what do you call it, mozzarella making machines, I just wanted to have some of the new super great breakfast cereals, that help you mantain weight, with the condition to exercise regularly and eat moderately. I thought it was worth a non-regular, one-time (to be moderate) try.
And, so, I ended up with Penteleu. A soft cheese coming straight form the milky mountains of Romania and it’s wonderful mozzarella-like cows.

Good for pizza too. Feels like a mozzarella that never gets fully… cooked. Does not ruin the pizza, just makes it feel very “fresh”.

Even so, I still had to find out the truth, because as a Judas that I was, I doubted what the lady said until I was going to see it with my own eyes. What was the truth behind the lady’s words? Was it true that mozzarella is so bad or was she just getting it all wrong? After all , mozzarella is just a cheese, cheese can’t be bad for you, it just makes no sense.
I of course looked online. After finding a lot of pages in italian and portuguese and getting the idea that it was just a national problem in Italy and only with the buffalo milk and not the cow’s milk, I also found a page in english that confirmed all my doubts.
So, the question is, what do the Italian buffalos have to do with romanian mozzarella cow’s cheese?
I tell you, consumer safety.