Pizza origins: how did this beloved dish come to be, and what do famous chefs think of pineapple topping?
The traditional Neapolitan dish began as a poor man’s meal but evolved into Italy’s beloved comfort food – but the staple ingredients were chosen for more than taste alone
Pizza is disputably one of the world’s best-loved dishes, exported and appropriated across the globe. The word pizza is one of the most clicked Italian words online in China, according to Italy’s linguistic academy Crusca. But how did this world-beating combination of dough, cheese and tomato come to be?
“Pizza is the symbol of the Neapolitan lifestyle, part of our soul,” says Guglielmo Vuolo, pizza master chef at the True Neapolitan Pizza Association, who tours the world to train chefs in the art of traditional pizza-making.
Pizza began as a poor person’s dish, hailing back to the streets of Naples when, in the 1700s, bakers started making a round dough disc and adding basic ingredients such as pork fat (olive oil was too expensive), grated sheep cheese and basil.
At the beginning there was only white pizza; the red version with tomato came later while the one with fior di latte melted cow cheese (similar to mozzarella) was invented in the 1880s by a local pizza man to honour the visit of Queen Margherita of Savoy – hence the iconic Pizza Margherita. The tomato (red) fior di latte (white) and basil (green) represent the colours of the Italian flag.
Vuolo’s lobby spreads awareness about the real Italian pizza and how it embodies Napoletanità (the Neapolitan way of being).
“When you serve a slice of pizza, you serve a piece of Naples. It all started here, then across centuries pizza evolved by spreading to other Italian regions and adding other ingredients such as anchovies, olives, buffalo milk mozzarella,” says Vuolo, a pizza award winner. He has two pizza restaurants, one in Naples and another in Verona, I Tigli.
While pizza is for everyone to share and love, there are a few sticking points when it comes to making the original Neapolitan one. Tomatoes should be local, preferably the sweet little San Marzano variety hailing from the Campania region, the olive oil an extra virgin one and the dough 4mm high with a 1cm- to 2cm-tall rim – otherwise it cracks open. Vuolo keeps an orchard where he grows old varieties of prime tomatoes (he gives diners a “tomato list”) and hunts around Italy for the best olive oils.