Dishes
Pizza Margherita
Also Known As Margherita Pizza
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A Neapolitan flatbread topped simply with tomato, mozzarella and basil, whose colors evoke the Italian flag. Popular tradition credits its 1889 creation in Naples to pizzaiolo Raffaele Esposito in honor of Queen Margherita of Savoy, though the Oxford Companion to Food notes the naming story is difficult to verify independently of the restaurant's own account. The wider art of Neapolitan pizza-making, Verace Pizza Napoletana, was added to UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2017.
Facts
Disputed
Origin Period, To (Year)Sourced to the subject's own accountMarks the popular legend's date for Queen Margherita's Naples visit and the pizza named for her; Wikipedia's own account notes the story and the name were first promoted only in the 1930s-1940s and its authenticity is doubted. Origin Period, From (Year)Sourced to the subject's own accountMarks Emanuele Rocco's 1849 documented description of Neapolitan pizza toppings including basil, tomato and mozzarella, the dish's clearest attested predecessor. Origin RegionSourced to the subject's own account Cross-Tradition Connections
Expresses Tradition
In Cuisine
Uses Ingredient
Sources
Dissenting Readings (1 dissenting reading)
Origin Period, To (Year)
The Oxford Companion to Food notes that the 1889 Queen Margherita naming story is difficult to verify independently of the restaurant's own account; Wikipedia's own sourcing adds that no press coverage from the period reported the supposed royal visit and that both the story and the name Margherita were first promoted only in the 1930s-1940s, decades after the fact.
A dissenting reading, from The Oxford Companion to FoodAlan Davidson, The Oxford Companion to Food, Oxford University Press, 2014
Frequently Asked Questions
Was pizza Margherita really named after Queen Margherita?
The 1889 royal-naming story is a popular legend whose authenticity is doubted; tomato-mozzarella-basil Neapolitan pizza is documented as early as 1849, well before the queen's supposed visit.
Popular tradition credits pizzaiolo Raffaele Esposito with creating pizza Margherita in Naples in 1889 in honor of Queen Margherita of Savoy, choosing tomato, mozzarella and basil for the colors of the Italian flag. The Oxford Companion to Food notes the story is difficult to verify independently of the restaurant's own account, and other sourcing adds that no press coverage from 1889 reported the supposed royal visit; both the story and the name Margherita appear to have been promoted only in the 1930s and 1940s. What is documented earlier is that similar tomato-mozzarella-basil Neapolitan pizzas were already being made by 1849, when Emanuele Rocco recorded the toppings.
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