Italians have been given something of a bad rap when it comes to understanding the dietary preferences of vegetarians and vegans. After all, what’s a little pancetta between friends?
I can certainly vouch from years of living and eating in Italy that there was a time when pasta al pomodoro was the best a hungry vegetarian could hope for. But there are some interesting signs of change: just last week my local supermarket – in the province of Treviso – was promoting tofu on deep discount and the nearby pizzeria is offering vegan mozzarella on the menu. You read right. A vegan and vegetarian friendly cheese pizza. In Italy. Served at an honest-to-goodness authentic pizzeria heavy on the wooden decor and red-and-white checked tablecloths.
According to the latest report by Euripes, a private political social and economic research group, the number of vegetarians and vegans in Italy is growing rapidly, up 15% in the last year, and demand for vegetarian and vegan products is on the rise.
Alessandro Menegon, the producer of the quasi-mozzarella, called Mozzarisella, knows this only too well. Coming from a traditional cheese making family, Menegon wanted to marry the family business with his own vegan principles.
Authentic mozzarella, like many kinds of cheese, is made using animal rennet – a product derived from the stomach lining of unweaned young animals. This puts mozzarella, and a range of other traditional European cheeses, off the menu for many vegetarians as well as those who are lactose intolerant.
Vegetarian cheeses do exist, of course, and can be made using coagulants such as mold, yeast, lemon juice or even thistles. But animal rennet is required to make the proteins break down in such a way that they can be kneaded and pulled into alignment to give the cheese that all-important stretch. The absence of animal rennet is also the reason why, when heated, vegetarian cheeses fail to melt satisfactorily, often resulting in just a slick, oily sweat rather than providing that oozy, unctious, explode-in-the-mouth moment. There’s just been no substitute for mozzarella with that characteristic stringiness and satisfying melt.
It’s the disappointing sweatiness that originally turned me against vegetarian and vegan versions of cheese pizza in the first place. It was only when I moved to Italy that I discovered vegan pizza already existed in the form of la marinara: warm woodfired dough topped with a simple tomato sauce, a drizzle of olive oil and a little more freshly crushed garlic than is socially palatable. I’ve been happy with these but when I saw the vegan mozzarella I was intrigued – could this be the holy grail of cheese?
On a pizza, it resembles the margaritas I used to see emerging from the ovens back in Naples. The cheese is soft and creamy; it even melts. And the taste? No substitute will ever replace the flavour of the original, but there’s nothing starchy, powdery or synthetic here at all. Just a slight acidic note, a little like yoghurt and a mild sweet flavour. It doesn’t stretch exactly as expected, but you can’t have everything.
Meegon says he’s producing more than 100,000 packages of his rice milk-based Mozzarisella for distribution to pizzerias in Italy. He will also be rolling it out across Europe in the future. He has even developed three different varieties, meaning that before long we might even expect to see a three-cheese vegan pizza on the menu.
