Pizza is now the most popular dish in the world. There are many kinds of pizza, but there is only one kind of pizza that originated from the Royal family. This is the pizza "Margaret", named after the 19th-century Italian princess.
Pizza with margaret in the same color as the Italian flag
The origin of Margaret's pizza
The story begins with a visit to Naples in 1889. The king and princess who came to the center of the city found the pistasiri wafting out of the seductive scent.
Driven by curiosity, they invited the restaurant's chef, Rafael Esposito, to the Royal Palace of Capodimonte in Naples, where they made pizza for the field abroad. Esposito makes a total of three types of pizza. One of them is named after the Italian flag and has red tomatoes, white mozzarella cheese and green basil.
The next day, Esposito received a letter from Camelot Gary, the head of the royal restaurant. The letter reads: "Dear Raphael Esposito. I can assure you that Her Royal Highness the Princess is very satisfied with the three pizzas you have made. Queen Margaret was happy with all three pizzas, but her favorites were red, white and green. So Esposito named this pizza Margaret, and the famous Neapolitan pizza was born.
Queen Margaret
Pizza and patriotism
There are many versions of the story about Margaret Pizza, which are covered in travel guides, recipes, and food history. Indeed, Margaret Pizza, which is in line with popular tastes, is very popular, and its origins are also very interesting. There are both fairy tales of princesses tasting commoner cuisine, as well as the patriotic meaning of pizza and the colors of the Italian flag (the color of red, white and green matches the color of Margaret's pizza).
The story of Margaret Pizza mentioned above is one of many versions that have circulated, and it is also a more believable version. Esposito did open a pizzeria in 1889, the year of Princess Margaret's visit, and coincidentally he changed the name to "Pizzeria the Queen of Italy" 6 years earlier. On 11 June 1889, Margaret and her husband Umberto did live in Naples, and Gali was indeed the head of the royal family's restaurant.
Another credible aspect of this circulating version is that, in addition, the royal family at the time had an incentive to curry favor with the citizens of Naples, who were suffering from the high taxes of the nascent Kingdom of Italy.
Queen Margaret
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Italy itself fell apart and the kingdoms were lined up for a thousand years. By the beginning of the 19th century, Italian aspirants began to liberate the country from foreign domination. In 1861, southern Italy and Naples broke away from the Bourbons, which were associated with Spain, and declared their independence as the Kingdom of Italy.
In 1870, Rome joined the nascent kingdom and Italy was unified; in 1878, the second King, Umberto I, ascended the throne and Margaret became princess. However, the new Italy is a new concept, and not everyone supports the unification of Italy. Umberto was nearly assassinated in Naples in his first year on the throne.
Because of this situation, food contains great possibilities for unifying national consciousness. This is especially true of Neapolitan pizza, which uses the color of the national flag, the princess loves to eat, and the name of the princess.
Umberto I
Is Margaret Pizza a legend made up?
So, in view of the Italian social background at that time, was Margaret Pizza a story deliberately made up by people with hearts, so that ordinary people could also taste the food and win the hearts and minds of the people?
A royal family's taste of civilian cuisine is one of the best ways to capture people's hearts. This has long been explained this way, but according to surveys in recent years, the story itself seems to have been made up.
In the story of the birth of Margarita Pizza, there are several important flaws. First, the dish has been around since the royal family visited Naples at least 30 years ago. In 1853, a man named Emanuel Rocco wrote a book collecting Neapolitan customs, which recorded pizza with basil, mozzarella cheese, and tomatoes as ingredients.
What happened at the Esposito pizzeria is not recorded in the records of the time. In contrast, there is no record of the Princess visiting the city in the publications that record news about the Italian royal family, nor of Gary's letter to Esposito. And it is believed that the signature of the letter sent to Esposito is inconsistent with Gary's handwriting.
So, if it wasn't Ghali, who wrote the letter? The clue lies in the "Raphael Esposito Brandi" mentioned in the address of the letter. Brandi is the maiden name of Raphael Esposito's wife, Maria Giovanna.
Raphael with his wife Maria
In Europe, it is unusual for a husband to use his wife's maiden name, so Esposito is unlikely to use Brandi's name. However, the pizzeria has two people named Brandi. That was Esposito's wife Maria's cousins Giovanni Brandi and Pascual Brandi, who took over Esposito's pizzeria in 1932.
There is a theory that the Brandi brothers forged the letter to promote the store. Because the shop was renamed "Brandi Pizzeria" in 1932, they had to add the name "Brandi" to the letter. In Italy at the time, the royals were very fond of the pizza of the commoners, and in 1880, a decade before the letter was made public, a newspaper reported that Princess Margaret had praised a certain artisan for pizza.
Esposito's pizzeria is still open today under the name Brandi Pizzeria. Whether princess Margaret's story is true or not, in 1989, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Margaret's pizza, a commemorative plaque was hung on the façade of Brandi's Pizzeria.