Burrata and food fads - a sort of 'a word from'
"It's the perfect food for the globalised palate; neutral enough to fit into anything, delicious enough to improve everything." Matt Goulding, Pasta, Pane Vino
This post comes from a book lent to me by my gourmet friend Monika. She finds wonderful things in op shops and this is one of them. The book is from a series called Roads and Kingdoms. It is written by a young American food writer called Matt Goulding, who currently lives in Barcelona with his wife. He works in partnership with Nathan Thornburgh who edits the books and also with the late Anthony Bourdain, who published, advised and lent his clout to the whole enterprise. Of course he is now dead, but he certainly was a large part of the three books so far published - on the food, culture and politics of Japan, Italy (this one) and Spain.
He is a very good writer and some of his books and writings have won awards, prestigious ones at that. So this post is largely in his words with a few extra bits from me. One of his parents was a travel agent, but his parents were not really into food. However, the young Matt obviously got the travel bug after university and started writing food related stuff. The irony is that the poor guy has Crohn's disease.
“The two ironies of my food life are one, that I come from a family that didn't really value food, and the other is that I ended up being deeply in love with this world of food but nevertheless have a digestive illness that presents all these interesting challenges and new adventures out there for me.”
I have a feeling cheese is one of those things he probably should not eat a lot of.
Anyway this is a sort of 'A word from ...' because his little section on burrata was so interesting. Indeed I think the rest of the book will throw up other subjects of interest as I go along. It is divided into chapters concentrating on one particular region of Italy, and seems to focus on a few artisans and a few specific dishes and products, rather than a general overview of the area which most similar books do. He also has some interesting things to say about the culture, and politics of the whole food production world.
In his chapter on Puglia he writes almost exclusively about the brothers Dicecca who live in the town of Altamara and make mozzarella. But they have travelled the world and shown people in places from darkest Africa, to Mexico and Asia how to make mozzarella. This has led them to experiment somewhat with their basic product - for example by adding exotic things like mango and matcha to the filling of burrata.
Burrata it seems is a relatively modern invention. In the 1920s a farming family in the nearby town of Andria invented it as a way of using up left-over mozzarella. But it remained fairly local until the 60s and 70s when it spread to northern Italy. It wasn't until the early years of this century that it became the global hit that it now is. Maybe the brothers Dicecca helped to spread it as they travelled the world showing people how to make it. Apparently it is a big hit in Thailand of all places. Well they have a lot of buffalo there. Matt Goulding has interesting things to say about this.
"Demand surged as savvy cooks and smart restaurateurs realised that all they had to do was drop a weeping ball of burrata on a plate, dressed with a few tomatoes and thatch of greenery, and they could charge $20 and still look like geniuses."
I think these versions would probably cost even more than $20 and they have even less on the plate really. But they are fancy and rather beautiful. The one on the right is an almost masterpiece of the plating art. And it wasn't served up in Italy - it comes from Madrid.
He goes on to say:
"In burrata's rocket-ship rise to stardom you can trace the anatomy of a global food craze. Find an ingredient either unknown or overlooked by the rest of the world. Build a signature dish around the ingredient that filters well on Instagram. Strip it of all culinary context until it fits comfortably into a million different manifestations. Wait for people to tire of it. Move on to the Next Big Food."
Which is perhaps a little unfair - I think this one may last for a while, but then again maybe not. After all fashionable ingredients come and go don't they? Remember kiwi fruit?
But just to demonstrate that he is sort of right, here is a selection from the usual suspects from left to right, top to bottom: Burrata with char-grilled grapes and basil (Yotam Ottolenghi) Burrata with pistachio dukkah and cherries (Frankie Unsworth), Donna Hay actually has five - here are two of them -Tarragon crumbed burrata with tomatoes and basil oil - Tomato tarts with burrata and prosciutto
And delicious actually has seventeen examples.
But back to the making of burrata. Matt Goulding describes how it is made in the brothers Dicecca workshop beginning with:
"shredding yesterday's mozzarella by hand to make stracciatella - 'little rags'. Mixed with a healthy measure of fresh cream, this forms 'il cuore', the heart, of burrata, to be deposited directly into a thin outer skin of mozzarella. The entire package is a little miracle, but it's the oozing, addictive filling that drives the world's serious eaters so fucking crazy ...
Michele grabs a golf ball chunk of curd from the warm bath and uses his palm to work it flat like a pizzaiolo shaping dough. When the cheese is thin and soft, he holds it up by the edges as Paolo deposits a ladle's worth of the cream-soaked stracciatella directly into the shell, like an edible knapsack. Michele squeezes the edges closed, works it around in his palm, then rips off the excess cheese and seals the package with a flick and a twist."
But you have to eat it fast, so it is unlikely that the burrata we eat in Australia really comes from Italy - but then here in Australia we have excellent burrata cheese makers of our own.
Real burrata needs to be eaten the same day, two days at the most. It begins to die slowly the second after it's made." Vito Dicecca Altamura
It is lovely though and certainly true that it lends itself to a thousand different uses.
"Real burrata is a thing of arresting beauty - white and unblemished on the surface, with a swollen belly and a pleated top. The outer skin should be taut and resistant, whilst the centre should give ever so slightly with gentle prodding. Look at the seam on top; as with mozzarella, it should be rough, imperfect, the sign of human hands at work. Cut into the bulge, and the deposit of fresh cream and mozzarella morsels seems to exhale across the plate. The richness of the cream - 'burrata' comes from 'burro', the Italian word for butter - coats the mouth, the morsels of mozzarella detonate one by one like little depth charges, and the entire package pulses with a gentle current of acidity." Matt Goulding, Pasta, Pane Vino
I wonder if we shall find burrata on the menu here in Port Douglas tonight?
