How to make pizza like a Neapolitan master

barmalini/Getty ImagesMozzarella di bufala is made from the milk of water buffalo that live in Italy’s Campania and Lazio regions (Credit: barmalini/Getty Images)

There are three basic types of Neapolitan pizza: the Margherita, topped with tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese and fresh basil; the marinara, which skips the cheese and uses oregano and garlic instead of basil; and the “DOC” made with mozzarella di bufala (buffalo mozzarella) instead of the usual fior di latte made from cow’s milk.

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Pizza is said to have originated in the city in the 1700s, after explorers brought one of the essential ingredients, the tomato, from Peru. But even before that, Neapolitans had been eating a version of the pita brought from Arabic immigrants as a kind of flatbread – which eventually became “pizza” in the local dialect. Most upper-class Europeans viewed the new tomato import with suspicion and originally considered it to be poisonous; at no fault of the tomato, people would place the acidic fruits on pewter plates, from which they’d leach lead, causing illness. But in a time of almost famine, local Neapolitans started topping their humble but delicious flatbreads with tomatoes, and soon the creation became a staple of the city’s cuisine.

Following the 1861 unification of the country, baker Raffaele Esposito was credited, in 1889, with inventing the now ubiquitous Margherita pizza in honour of the visit of Queen Margherita di Savoia, the wife of King Umberto the I, to the city. The colours of the Italian flag were mirrored in the ingredients: tomatoes for red; cheese for white; and basil for green. And thus, the iconic pizza was born.