A salumi plate was simple, too, and satisfying — several kinds of cured meat from the Belleville butcher R. Violante & Son, with mozzarella, aged provolone and a lovely homemade caponata.
Among the goodies were aged fontina cheese, mozzarella with a dollop of pesto, paper-thin bresaola, grilled eggplant and zucchini, suppresata, salami, other sausages and red potato salad with smoked salmon.
Moreover, they found evidence that the relevant abundances of isobutylic alcohol, lactic acid, and acetic acid, were the markers which would help to identify the aged samples of "mozzarella di bufala campana" [67].
With 3,000 orders a week, the upscale products (the picholine-packed pizzas also feature aged parmesan reggiano, fresh mozzarella and slow-cooked tomato sauce) clearly appeal to time-stressed food sophisticates who have rude friends and no off-street parking (or even cars) available for unloading their own grocery bags.
Ideally, mozzarella cheese should be aged one month.
The store offers more than a dozen combinations, including Double Gloucester with onion and chive; smoked Gouda, roasted tomatoes and fresh basil; aged goat cheese and fig jam; and mozzarella, tomato and pesto ($5.50 to $7).
The ingredients most prized by rich gastronomes are Italian - white truffles, Manni olive oil, Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, aged balsamic vinegar, Amalfi lemons - as are today's fashionable foodstuffs, such as buffalo mozzarella, ricotta, polenta... the list is a long one.
Tony & Bruno's makes its own sausages and ages its fresh mozzarella.
For a Caprese salad — the best I've had in ages — he makes his own mozzarella and partners it with quartered Campari tomatoes, shreds of basil and a 25-year-aged saba vinegar so sweet and syrupy that it tastes honeyed.
