Nothing against mozzarella, but as we enter insalata caprese season, maybe you want to switch up your game. Crescenza—from Italy or the U.S.—is a worthy alternative to mozzarella or burrata with sliced summer tomatoes (coming soon!) or on a pizza. And it’s a much more compelling cheese on its own. Mozzarella is springy; Crescenza slumps on a plate and feels like custard on your tongue.
I haven’t had Italian Crescenza in years but found it recently at Rainbow Grocery in San Francisco. The price was amazing for a cheese that travels to the U.S. by air--$6.99 for a package that weighed about a half-pound. Inside was a soft, floppy pillow of rindless cow’s milk cheese. Unwrapping it felt like inverting an hourglass; this moist cheese has the lifespan of a doughnut. After breaching the package, you really need to use Crescenza within two or three days, before it starts to sour. But maybe the harder challenge is not to devour it all in one sitting.
To get acquainted with this cheese, serve it simply. Sprinkle with cracked pepper, add a few drops of your best extra virgin olive oil and serve with grilled pain au levain. It smells a little bit yeasty, with a hint of white mushroom and sour cream, and it has a gentle sour-cream tang.
Bellwether Farms Crescenza/Ed Anderson Photo
Italians cook with Crescenza and its virtually identical twin, Stracchino. Both cheeses originate in Lombardy, in northern Italy, where cooks use it on pizza, in sandwiches, in risotto and in the popular focaccia di Recco. Following directions I found on Giallo Zafferano, a cooking blog in Italian, I made risotto with Crescenza, peas and mint—a successful dish but I missed the cheese’s supple texture; with heat, it quickly melts into the rice.
The creamery that makes the Crescenza I purchased, 3B Latte, says they create their own culture by propagating bacteria from local milk. I don’t know if that’s the secret to the captivating flavor, but it surely contributes. California’s Bellwether Farms also makes a lovely Crescenza that will be easier to find. The 3B Latte Crescenza is sold mostly to restaurants, but Northern California residents can look for it at Falletti Foods (San Francisco), Oliver’s (Santa Rosa area), Rainbow Grocery, Sunshine Foods (St. Helena) and Woodlands Market (San Francisco, Kentfield and Tiburon). Wisconsin producer BelGioioso also makes Crescenza-Stracchino (their name), but I have not tried it.