At first glance, Georgia Tedone looks more like a typical grandmother
than the guardian of a top-secret recipe for gourmet mozzarella cheese.
In her unmarked storefront on Metropolitan Avenue in Williamsburg, just
a few feet off Lorimer Street, the cheese-making process begins a
little before 3am. At nearly 88, Georgia Tedone is the sole remaining
owner/operator of Tedone Latticini, the 84-year-old dairy originally
established by her grandfather. Despite the nearly vacant shelves and
meat coolers, Tedone is certain there is one product she’ll never be
able to stock enough of.
“I do have help, I mean to say, somebody slices the cheese, but the actual creation of the cheese is done by me. Other than that, I don’t let anyone touch the cheese but me,” explains Tedone, gazing out the window at the busy, early morning street.
“It’s because I don’t want anyone to know how to make the mozzarella the way I make it.”
By morning, Tedone will have prepared about 40 mozzarellas that are ready to be sold and consumed. She works the way the wind blows: if she thinks she is going to sell more she’ll make more; if not she retires to her apartment at the rear of her shop.
“My grandfather taught me how to make mozzarella, my mother was a widow,” says Tedone, giving one of the morning’s free daily newspapers a blind glance across the venerable business counter. “He had farms in Europe and he understood the qualities of milk. He taught us how to work the cheese in order to keep the ingredients inside the milk and not destroy the flavor of the cheese.”
The history of mozzarella is not free of controversy. Reportedly first found near Naples, mozzarella was initially made with the milk of water buffalo, but over time began regularly being produced with cow’s milk. With the progress of technology and refrigeration, it became possible for the cheese to travel away from Italy and it became a widespread favorite. Even though most buffalo-milk mozzarella is produced in Italy and South America, there remains a small amount of the original-style cheese still being produced in the United States today. While the growing popularity of mozzarella has produced loyal shop patrons and profitable price tags, some traditionalists, like Tedone, are wary of the product losing its authenticity in the mass market.
“They keep taking away all the ingredients that make it good, the cream of the cheese, and they’re not even using a full can of milk,” argues Tedone, who has been handling business solo since her brother retired from the shop some ten years ago. “The milk we get in the city is really half water; you can’t make a proper cheese out of water, and you have to have the milk and cream. They say they do it because of the cholesterol, but I don’t think that’s what it is.”
While on any given day the amount of available mozzarellas may vary, the quality of the product, when obtainable, never seems to fall far from perfection. Her trademark cheese has earned her small, quiet shop a widespread popularity and a healthy following both in Brooklyn and beyond. “We’ve had different types of people come and move into this neighborhood and people always like my mozzarella,” says Tedone, placing a bag of fresh rolls on the shelves next to the almost-abandoned Entenmann’s baked goods. “I have people who come in that live in Poland, Mexico, Russia and Puerto Rico, and when they come back they always stop in the store.”
Nearly as impressive as her perfectly crafted cheese is Tedone’s ability to run her small shop almost entirely on the strength of her world-famous mozzarella. The mostly vacant shelves stock less than a handful of random Stella Doro, Entenmann’s and Barilla pasta products. Her single working slicer sits spotless to the right of the front counter, where it meets a long freezer full of frozen delicacies. Three ancient shopping carts, more antique than convenient, conjure a time in New York before Stop & Shop or 7-Eleven. Even with the changes in the neighborhood, and the mozzarella market, Tedone continues to open her doors to the community she has been serving all of her life.
“I’m lucky that I’ve been able to attract the young people who’ve moved into the neighborhood,” she says, watching out the window in what appears to be her preferred position. “They aren’t as lucky in a lot of other places in Brooklyn where the people don’t eat dairy.”
With no pension protecting her, Tedone sees herself opening up shop for as long as she’s in the health to carry out what she considers her calling. Although customer traffic has slowed over the years her spirit hasn’t faded and making mozzarella remains the most important thing in her life. “I’m happy when I make someone happy,” says Tedone in between slicing a small serving of lunchmeat for a young, yet familiar, local schoolboy and letting the Con Edison man in to read the meter in the back room. “I noticed that people are enthralled by a little golf ball, or by a basketball or by baseball and it makes me think that I can make people happy with my mozzarella.”
“I do have help, I mean to say, somebody slices the cheese, but the actual creation of the cheese is done by me. Other than that, I don’t let anyone touch the cheese but me,” explains Tedone, gazing out the window at the busy, early morning street.
“It’s because I don’t want anyone to know how to make the mozzarella the way I make it.”
By morning, Tedone will have prepared about 40 mozzarellas that are ready to be sold and consumed. She works the way the wind blows: if she thinks she is going to sell more she’ll make more; if not she retires to her apartment at the rear of her shop.
“My grandfather taught me how to make mozzarella, my mother was a widow,” says Tedone, giving one of the morning’s free daily newspapers a blind glance across the venerable business counter. “He had farms in Europe and he understood the qualities of milk. He taught us how to work the cheese in order to keep the ingredients inside the milk and not destroy the flavor of the cheese.”
The history of mozzarella is not free of controversy. Reportedly first found near Naples, mozzarella was initially made with the milk of water buffalo, but over time began regularly being produced with cow’s milk. With the progress of technology and refrigeration, it became possible for the cheese to travel away from Italy and it became a widespread favorite. Even though most buffalo-milk mozzarella is produced in Italy and South America, there remains a small amount of the original-style cheese still being produced in the United States today. While the growing popularity of mozzarella has produced loyal shop patrons and profitable price tags, some traditionalists, like Tedone, are wary of the product losing its authenticity in the mass market.
“They keep taking away all the ingredients that make it good, the cream of the cheese, and they’re not even using a full can of milk,” argues Tedone, who has been handling business solo since her brother retired from the shop some ten years ago. “The milk we get in the city is really half water; you can’t make a proper cheese out of water, and you have to have the milk and cream. They say they do it because of the cholesterol, but I don’t think that’s what it is.”
While on any given day the amount of available mozzarellas may vary, the quality of the product, when obtainable, never seems to fall far from perfection. Her trademark cheese has earned her small, quiet shop a widespread popularity and a healthy following both in Brooklyn and beyond. “We’ve had different types of people come and move into this neighborhood and people always like my mozzarella,” says Tedone, placing a bag of fresh rolls on the shelves next to the almost-abandoned Entenmann’s baked goods. “I have people who come in that live in Poland, Mexico, Russia and Puerto Rico, and when they come back they always stop in the store.”
Nearly as impressive as her perfectly crafted cheese is Tedone’s ability to run her small shop almost entirely on the strength of her world-famous mozzarella. The mostly vacant shelves stock less than a handful of random Stella Doro, Entenmann’s and Barilla pasta products. Her single working slicer sits spotless to the right of the front counter, where it meets a long freezer full of frozen delicacies. Three ancient shopping carts, more antique than convenient, conjure a time in New York before Stop & Shop or 7-Eleven. Even with the changes in the neighborhood, and the mozzarella market, Tedone continues to open her doors to the community she has been serving all of her life.
“I’m lucky that I’ve been able to attract the young people who’ve moved into the neighborhood,” she says, watching out the window in what appears to be her preferred position. “They aren’t as lucky in a lot of other places in Brooklyn where the people don’t eat dairy.”
With no pension protecting her, Tedone sees herself opening up shop for as long as she’s in the health to carry out what she considers her calling. Although customer traffic has slowed over the years her spirit hasn’t faded and making mozzarella remains the most important thing in her life. “I’m happy when I make someone happy,” says Tedone in between slicing a small serving of lunchmeat for a young, yet familiar, local schoolboy and letting the Con Edison man in to read the meter in the back room. “I noticed that people are enthralled by a little golf ball, or by a basketball or by baseball and it makes me think that I can make people happy with my mozzarella.”
