Quote Originally Posted by KukriKhan View Post
Isn't processed American 'pepperoni' merely a spicey-hot salami?
Calling American 'pepperoni' salami is like calling the meat Taco Bell puts into their tacos beef. Technically, it's correct, but the differences in quality, preparation, and taste are so severe that they really are not the same thing. I actually find it very, very difficult to get a good salami in the US. The only common US brand I've seen that reliably makes high-quality salami is Columbus. Most US grocery stores carry half a dozen kinds of salami, if you're lucky. In Italy and Germany, there are literally hundreds of different kinds of salami. Americans know as much about how to make good salami as Japanese know about BBQ.

And I don't care how recently it was manipulated into its cook-able form, cheese hasta curdle to be cheese, so it can never be 'fresh'.
Fine, call it whatever you want to call it. The point is that month-old machine processed mozzarella is not remotely similar in flavor to mozzarella that is hand-made the same day you eat it.