© ErN
55, entry June 2010
Bubalus Bubalis & How He Got to Naples
Bubalus bubalis
is Yiddish for "buffaloes that stutter." No,
actually, it's the Linnaean binomial taxonomy, meaning
that the genus is bubalus
and the species B.
bubalis, for what is generally called the water
buffalo. It is also called the domestic Asian water
buffalo and in Italy is now also termed the Mediterranean
Italian buffalo. It is a bovine, but, in spite of the term
"buffalo," is a separate genus from other bovines that may
also be popularly called "buffalo" in some parts of the
world, such as the North American bison, for example. (I
mean, would you even go out
with a woman called a "bubalus gal"?)
Most of the world's
160 million water buffaloes are in Asia where they are
used as draft, meat and dairy animals; the dung is also
used as fertilizer and fuel. In some parts of Asia, they
have buffalo races and buffalo fights, and some cultures
even have sacred water buffaloes. In southern
Italy—primarily Campania—however, the many thousands of
female water buffaloes serve a much loftier goal—producing
milk to make mozzarella
cheese. Italian use of the term "buffalo" reflects that,
and the feminine form, bufala,
has almost become generic. The male animal, bufalo, serves
primarily to keep the female happy, and many of us know
what that is like. Finally, the female form, bufala, may be used to
mean "nonsense" or "rubbish," in the way that speakers of
English use the term "baloney," which may or may not have
to do with the city, Bologna. (More on that at this link.)
How did bubalus bubalis get
to Naples? Some sources say that the Goths brought them
from the north during the invasions following the fall of
the Roman empire. (Those sources don't explain how
northern Europeans got Asian water buffaloes in the first
place.) Also, say some, perhaps the Crusaders brought them
back from the Middle East. (That is unlikely since the
animals were in Italy before
the Crusades.) The chronology of the domestication of the
animal speaks for itself. The Asian water buffalo is a
domesticated variation of the Bubalus arnee, the wild buffalo of the
Indus valley, where they were first tamed for agriculture
before 2500 B.C.; thus, they were present in the famous
Harappa Indus valley civilization of the Indian
subcontinent and then spread west shortly thereafter to
Mesopotamia during the period of the Akkadian dynasty. In
light of that, the most commonly accepted explanation for
their presence in Italy is relatively straightforward:
Arab/Islamic colonizers and traders found the buffalo as
they moved east in the 600s and then introduced it in the
west in North Africa and Sicily. From there the animals
spread to the Italian mainland at various Arab enclaves in
the south. The Arabs brought with them the art of making
dairy products from buffalo milk and imparted that art to
the natives (captured Benedictine monks, according to some
sources). The tradition of making mozzarella became firmly
entrenched and stayed even after the Arabs lost their
footholds on the southern mainland and eventually lost
Sicily, itself, to the Normans in the 1000s. Sources
document the presence of producers of mozzarella in the
area of Aversa, the initial Norman holding in the south,
as early as the 11th century. After that, the tradition of
mozzarella in
Campania is solidly established.
There is some
confusion in distinguishing mozzarella and fior di latte, a cheese made from cow's
milk. Mozzarella is made only from buffalo milk. That
confusion exists elsewhere, but not in Campania or
anywhere in southern Italy. That is, they —who know the
difference— might try to sell you a pizza with cheese made
from pasteurized cow's milk, but they know they shouldn't.
A real Neapolitan pizza has to be made with real Campanian
mozzarella as
defined by the law governing foodstuffs of Denominazione di origine
controllata (DOC)—Protected Geographical Status.
There is, in fact, a consortium responsible for the
"protection, surveillance, promotion and marketing" of the
Buffalo Cheese of Campania.
Finally, although I
have used it here, the term "mozzarella cheese" makes no
sense in Italian. You either want mozzarella or cheese.
It can't be both. That would be as confusing as, well, bubalus bubalis, and
we don't want that. Also, the term mozzarella comes from
the verb mozzare,
meaning "to break off" and refers to a step in the shaping
of the finished product. It does NOT mean "cut" and it's
not cheese, so you can forget that joke you've just been
dying to blurt out, you vulgarian, you.
to miscellaneous
portal
to top of
this page
©
2002 - 2023