Mondo Knows Facts
Mozzarella is stretched, not pressed
Hot whey makes the curd plastic enough to pull into strands
Mozzarella belongs to the pasta filata family, cheeses that are kneaded and stretched in hot whey until the curd becomes elastic and stringy. The heat aligns the protein fibres, which is why the finished cheese tears into strands when melted on a pizza. Fresh mozzarella is then shaped by hand or moulded and chilled in brine.
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Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.
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Tags: cheese, mozzarella, italy
Mozzarella is stretched, not pressed: the short answers
- Where does this come from, and can I check it?
- Hot whey makes the curd plastic enough to pull into strands. The figure is taken from Encyclopaedia Britannica, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
- Is this really a food fact?
- Yes. It sits on the Food shelf, one of 1,090 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
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