Giuseppe Salzarulo, who goes by Sal, came to America in 1966 from Lioni, a small town in Italy, with no intention of making the fresh mozzarella he and his family had been producing for five generations in Italy. He joined his mother and a couple of his brothers in Brooklyn, N.Y., worked in his brother’s store, and just tried to make ends meet while selling imported pasta to small stores in New York.
He saw that these stores were also selling fresh mozzarella, but not the quality he was used to. He wasted no time telling them that “I could make it better!” He started making about 100 pounds a week of fresh mozzarella in his mother’s garage using the recipe and traditions his family had been using in Italy for years. He sold the cheese to the same local stores and they kept asking for more.