The first time you see a burrata sitting on a plate, tilted, you might be puzzled. The burrata is as white as mozzarella but has a strange narrowing at the top, like a giant dumpling. With a knife and fork, you prick the bag, knowing that something is hiding under that initial layer of cheese. With a firm blow, you cut the bag in half and the filling with cream and mozzarella strips spreads and spreads over the plate. You roll the mozzarella strips with your fork like spaghetti, and with dripping cream you have the first bite: an explosion of milk mixed with sweet cream and mozzarella.
An explosion of milk mixed with sweet cream and mozzarella
You can find burrata all over the world, mostly in high-end food stores and restaurants. According to the Italian dairy association Assolatte, $ 56 million worth of burrata was produced in Italy in 2018 and then distributed to cafes in Rome, markets in Tokyo and restaurants in New York. Italian immigrants exported the recipe all over the world and today the burrata is produced in places from Estonia to Argentina. The cheese is used to garnish Neapolitan pizzas, alongside shrimp or as an accompaniment to spaghetti al pomodoro.
Burrata has become a global cheese, but its history dates back to the 1920s in the southern Italian territory of Murgia (part of the Apulia region), on the outskirts of the town of Andria, in the shadow of a castle. It was born out of a need to minimize food waste and is a delicious example of human ingenuity.
Murgia, which in the Apulian dialect means “stone”, is the tail of the Apennines, the mountain range that crosses Italy like a spine. Majestic oaks, wild olive trees and almond trees cover the hills that are now part of Parco Nazionale dell’Alta Murgia. In the center of the park, overlooking the plains of Puglia and the Adriatic Sea, stands Castel del Monte, a majestic castle built in the 13th century by Federico II di Svevia, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. In the valleys around the castle, hidden under the shadows of oak trees to protect themselves from the summer heat, the grazing cows provide the milk which contributed to the birth of the burrata.
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According to a study carried out at the beginning of the 20th century by Michele Sinisi, professor at the Istituto Agrario di Andria, when the burrata was created, there were only a few hundred cows in the area. Nevertheless, their milk, delicate and less fat than sheep’s milk, had the right chemistry to create the beloved cheese.
Riccardo Campanile, an Apulian historian who has devoted a significant part of his life to studying the history of Murgia, said that Burrata was officially born in the 1920s in a masseria (farm) near Castel del Monte called Masseria Bianchini. According to Campanile, who has had numerous interviews with the elderly population of Andria, it was local cheese maker Lorenzo Bianchino Chieppa who invented the burrata. However, there is no written record of the claim, which has led to tensions among major Andria burrata makers who have also claimed the invention. The word burrata first appears on the Guida Gastronomica D’Italia (an inventory of Italian regional recipes) published in 1931 by the Italian Touring Club, which classified burrata as a typical local product of Andria.
According to Campanile, who interviewed Chieppa’s son years ago, burrata was born to use leftovers from the cheese-making process. “The cream came from the dense layer formed above the morning milking,” Campanile said. At the same time, the cheesemaker was making the stretched curd mozzarella and had a bit of it. These pieces of mozzarella were skinned with the fingers, mixed inside the cream and used as a filling for the burrata.
“Back then, the pouch was made by blowing the inside of the mozzarella,” Campanile said. The cheesemaker energetically blew on a piece of hot, malleable, fresh mozzarella to make an inflatable balloon – a technique long abandoned for air compressors for food safety reasons.
Back then, there was no refrigeration to keep the cheese fresh during the trip to the market, and they had to travel on horseback, which could take a day. According to Campanile, Chieppa’s invention overcame some chemical and logistical challenges: the cream would act as a preservative, preventing the remaining strips of mozzarella from turning sour; and a leaf wrap protected the burrata from the heat of the scorching sun.
Angela Asseliti, 75, was born and raised with her grandfather Michele in another masseria a few hundred meters from Castel del Monte, where she lived until she was 30. While her brother Domenico Asseliti now runs the family dairy Caseificio Asseliti e De Fato with her sons and nephews, she has played an essential role in the fame of the burrata. In the 1980s, she invented the burratina: a smaller version that you can eat in one bite.
“I used to sleep in the barn with my grandfather and the cows,” says Angela. “We woke up at four o’clock to milk the cows, and at sunrise I took them to graze in Murgia.
Angela remembers how they soaked the freshly made burrata in brine to harden the outer layer of mozzarella, before dressing it with leaves of the asphodel – which the Greeks believed to be the Elysee plant, the place in the afterlife where the souls of these loved by the gods rested – to keep the burrata moist and preserve its freshness for the 18 km journey into town.
“We carried it on a horse, to the lawyers and aristocrats who could afford it,” Angela said.
A complex cheese to make, with a short shelf life, burrata has always been seen as a premium cheese.
Nowadays, cheese makers make burrata using modern machinery and wrap it in plastic which, due to EU hygiene regulations, replaces asphodel leaves. Instead of transporting it on horseback, cheese reaches all corners of the world by plane.
“The process starts at 3:00 am,” said Maria Teresa Santovito, quality control manager at Caseificio Olanda, another dairy in Andria. Along with her husband Riccardo and the rest of the family, she relies on the burrata as a major source of income. Fifty percent of their burrata production goes in the morning to places like Germany, Tokyo and Hong Kong.
“We buy some of our milk from a masseria in Murgia,” Santovito said. Today, Murgia’s farms supply only a fraction of their dairies’ milk quota, and most of the milk used to produce the burrata comes from other regions of Italy or from EU countries. To protect the authentic burrata making process against imitation, Caseifico Olanda, together with Caseificio Asseliti e De Fato and six other dairies, came together in 2018 to create an Indication of Geographical Protection (PGI), naming it Burrata di Andria IGP. Any Apulian dairy that respects the consortium’s regulations can join: the milk can come from outside the region, but the production must take place in Puglia according to a precise recipe and method.
Felice Sgarra, Michelin-starred chef and co-owner of restaurant Casa Sgarra in the nearby town of Trani, has long used burrata in his dishes, from antipasti to desserts – including a parmigiana (a typical dish made from fried eggplant, tomato sauce, basil and mozzarella) with burrata and tomato ice cream.
“Burrata represents Andria,” Sgarra said. “Fat cream is its secret which, with the sweetness of mozzarella and the sweetness of milk, makes it a unique food.”
You close your eyes and it takes you back to childhood
According to Sgarra, the world’s most popular foods have a fat component. And burrata has that.
“You can use the burrata for anything, but it doesn’t need anything. You just have to open it and eat, ”Sgarra said. “You close your eyes and it takes you straight back to childhood.”
While the burrata can now be found all over the world, you have to travel to Puglia for the truest experience. Enter a caseificio, buy some freshly made burrata, and head to Castel del Monte. In the shade of the castle, open the packaging and bite into the burrata. Let it spread over your hands. And as you eat it, go back a century, when human ingenuity created the most delicious and creamy treat.
Culinary roots is a BBC Travel series connected to rare and local foods woven into a place’s heritage.
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