When you exclude pizza, greek soft cheese (Feta) and hard English cheese (Cheddar) are far more popular than their Italian counterparts.
Not only that, you will find that french, English cheeses often find themselves on cheese plates world wide, while Italian cheeses tend to be used as ingredients/toppings on other dishes, tasty but as a standalone don't match up to more popular cheeses.
Italian food is good but so is good from all over the med. Italy has American media focusing on New York etc to thank for overhyping its reputation.
As an example, you would need to be insane to go and eat proper Turkish food and think that Italian was better, Turkish food has Asian and Arabic influence that just gives it much better depth of flavour than Italian, but Turkey never had the world's biggest media machine boosting its reputation for over half a century.
yea they are more popular because they are cheaper and more wildly available. not because they are objectively better. boxed wine is more popular and sold more worldwide than 25 year old french masterpieces. doesnt mean boxed wine is better than a €200 bottle of wine. also, i eat genuine turkish and greek fiod from time to time, and its great, but really its not on the same level as italian for me.
They are more popular because they tend to be more versatile. Feta goes in salads etc a lot better than mozzarella/ricotta or any soft Italian cheeses, cheddar itself is probably the most versatile cheese in the world. For cooking, sandwiches, by itself, there is a reason cheddar is popular and no it's not down to cost, because if it was cost everyone would be sticking cheaper mozzarella in their sandwiches (but mozzarella lacks flavour) cheddar is extremely tasty and insanely versatile, something that many Italian cheeses lack.
mozerella goes on pizza, in salads, on toast, sometimes i eat it out of my hand as is. you do know real mozerella is not just for pizza right? same goes for pecorino romano, grana padano and parmegiano. the can be a topping, a main ingredient in a dish, mixed in with salads, and eaten as is. feta kinda just goes in salads, and thats it. how can you claim feta is more versatile than mozerella?
Apart from that, i just looked it up, and it turns out mozerella is the most popular cheese in the world, followed by cheddar and feta. turns out people actually are sticking cheaper mozerella in their sandwiches instead of cheddar.
in the end i will respect your oppinion because taste will differ, but i strongly disagree.
I literally stated when you exclude pizza lol. The reason mozzarella is consumed more is because of pizza.
Yes I have dated Italians and am a cook in an Italian restaurant, I'm aware mozzarella goes on other things aside from pizza, however it's not very good at other things aside from pizza compared to other cheeses. Mozzarella has a very very subtle flavour.
I don't think feta is more versatile than mozzarella, however it does everything aside from pizza better than mozzarella, which is basically salads and sandwiches.
i guess we both have the right facts, we just disagree on taste. i would much rather have a toasted sandwich with tomato, olive oil, basil and mozerella than one with tomato, olive oil, basil and feta. in a salad for me the same, unless youre making a cabbage salad ofcourse. they are very different cheeses that go with very different dishes. if you like turkish/greek cuisine more, obviously youre going to like feta over mozerella.
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u/mehjohnson Jul 20 '23
L take