History says that the Romans already in the second half of the 1st century BC were the first in the world to make cheese from sheep's milk. Mozzarella is supposed to have a somewhat later origin. According to legend, in the 3rd century AD, the Italian monks of San Lorenzo di Capua made mozza cheese. The name means "break-off", possibly indicating that the layers of this cheese are easy to separate. There are also suggestions that mozzarella is named after the word "mozzatura", which describes the process of making cheese by breaking up pieces of cheese into smaller pieces.
