What could be more welcome after a long day than a plate of fried mozzarella sandwiches with a gooey, molten filling? It’s what comfort was invented for
Years ago, after a delayed flight and horrendous taxi ride from the airport, Vincenzo made me mozzarella in carrozza. It wasn’t the first time he’d made mozzarella sandwiches (dipped in flour and egg and then fried), but it was certainly the most memorable, because it was almost midnight and the only thing I’d eaten since lunchtime was half a Toblerone. Taking the first bite was like walking into a room filled with old friends – eggy bread, fried bread, cheese on toast, Breville toasted sandwiches – and, at the same time, quite unlike anything I had eaten before. It was also the most delicious thing I had ever eaten (again, I was starving, so unfair advantage), and entertaining: the string of cheese stretching between my mouth and the bread triangle, like an extendable dog lead, then sticking to my chin.
Carrozza is the carriage, so the name means “mozzarella in a carriage”. It is a dish that originated in mozzarella-making regions – what is now Campania and southern Lazio – although it is now diffused. Like resourceful home cooking everywhere, there are as many ways to make mozzarella in carrozza as there are cooks, with strong feelings usefully stemming from the fact that people feel extremely attached to what they grew up with, and the psychological reassurance of it tasting a certain way. I have a Neapolitan teacher called Daniela Del Balzo to whom mozzarella in carrozza is intensely emotional; a thread with her childhood that represents the bounty of home, so tradition, comfort and love. For her, to seal each triangle with flour and water paste, triple dip and deep-fry for her kids and grandkids is a way to pass on this bounty, and to maintain the thread. Vincenzo has his own way of making them, too, which is probably just as loaded with stuff, although he laughs off my attempts to make him voice them. But then, he looks so like his mother when he stands with a spatula.
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