Stracciatella from Caseificio Maldera in Puglia, the region in the south of Italy that invented this style. It's a pasteurized cow's milk cheese made by shredding fresh pasta-filata mozzarella into fine strands (stracci means shreds) while the curd is still warm and stretchy, then folding those shreds into fresh cream. What you get in the tub is loose, spoonable, and completely fresh, the tangle of mozzarella pieces pulling apart in a pool of cream. The flavor is milky and sweet, the texture is closer to soft-scrambled dairy than to a cheese you slice. This is the same interior that gets sealed inside a burrata, but sold on its own so you can use it more freely, on toast, across a plate of tomatoes, over a bowl of pasta right off the heat. Because it's made fresh and shipped fast, condition is everything. Get it home, keep it cold, and eat it within a few days of opening while the cream still tastes like cream. Come on down to the cheese store and grab a tub.
