IT IS PIZZA MARGHERITA’S BIRTHDAY - 125 YEARS OLD, AS A LETTER DATED JUNE 1889 FROM THE HEAD OF TABLE SERVICES FOR THE ROYAL PALACE DOCUMENTS, ASKING CHEF ESPOSITO TO PREPARE HIS FAMOUS PIZZAS FOR HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN

It is Pizza Margherita’s birthday - 125 years old, as documented by a letter from the head of Table services of the Royal Palace, Galli Camillo who, in June 1889, invited chef Raffaele Esposito of Pizzeria Brandi to the Capodimonte Palace, the summer residence of the royal family, to prepare his famous pizzas for Her Majesty the Queen Margherita. The Italian farmers association, Coldiretti announced it, saying the first Margherita pizza was created with the toppings, tomato, mozzarella and basil, representing the Italian flag. And it is no coincidence that today 39% of Italians believe that pizza is the culinary symbol of Italy, according to an online survey on the site www.coldiretti.it and pizza is the most known Italian word abroad, at 8%, followed by cappuccino (7%%), spaghetti (7%) and by espresso (6%), says an online survey by the Dante Alighieri Society. Margherita pizza - said Coldiretti - is a typical Neapolitan pizza topped with tomato, cow's milk mozzarella, fresh basil, salt and oil. Not everyone agrees on this version of its origin and argue that there have been previous versions, because - points out Coldiretti - the first written records about pizza in Italy date back to 997, even though the recipe was completely different since tomatoes were discovered in the Americas long after that date.
The Margherita pizza – states Coldiretti - is by far the favorite around the world now, and the United States has become the top consumer, with the world record of 13 kilos of pizza per person per year, almost double that of Italians who are tied for second place with an average of 7.6 kilos per head. In the U.S. – continued Coldiretti - the pizza business is worth 40 billion US$ and 93% of Americans consume it at least once a month for an average of 350 slices per second. In Italy – Coldiretti said - it is estimated that pizza generates a turnover of 10 billion euros, counting more than 250.000 employees and 50.000 pizzerias. There has been a slight setback in Italy due to the crisis, even though pizza is still a cost effective product. According to the Coldiretti / IXE survey, 25% of consumers today have stopped going out to pizzerias while 40% go less often than before the crisis. Only 22% - Coldiretti - continue to go to pizzerias with the same frequency and 1% go even more than before. The tendency to save has, unfortunately, also affected the genuineness of the ingredients.
According to Coldiretti’s study, almost 2 out of 3 pizzas served in Italy are obtained from a mixture of flour, tomato, mozzarella and olive oil from thousands of miles away and there is no indication of this for the consumer. Pizzerias in Italy more and more often are serving a prepared product - said Coldiretti - with mozzarella cheese obtained not from fresh milk but semi-industrial, the so-called curds, from Eastern Europe; Chinese or American tomatoes instead of Italian; Spanish or Tunisian olive oil or even vegetable oil instead of Italian extra virgin olive oil and French, German or Ukrainian flour replaces Italian flour. In 2013 - said Coldiretti - 481 million pounds of olive oil and olive pumice, more than 80 million pounds of cheese curds for mozzarella, 105 million pounds of tomato paste of which 58 million from the U.S. and 29 million from China and 3.6 billion pounds of wheat were imported in Italy, and in the first two months of 2014 the trend is a 20% increase. There are, however, initiatives to guarantee authenticity, such as the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana (True Neapolitan Pizza Association), which has developed a specification also exported abroad to the United States.
Last May 2014, the "Wall Street Journal" decided - concluded Coldiretti - to put on its front page the story of an American pizza maker, the forty-year-old Justin Piazza, who for the first time decided to make pizza according to the true Neapolitan pizza (VPN) specifications with great success in Phoenix, Arizona.