NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC HISTORY 13way. According to recent research, how-
ever, the story is not only just that, a sto-
ry, but one based on forgery.
Food historians have found several key
holes in the account. Probably the most
damning is that the dish existed at least
three decades before any royal visit to Na-
ples. In an 1853 collection of essays about
Neapolitan customs, author Emanuele
Rocco describes a pizza topped with “ba-
silico, muzzarella, e pomodoro”: basil, moz-
zarella, and tomatoes.
Local records reveal no contemporary
reference to the Esposito pizzeria inci-
dent. The Gazette of the Kingdom of Italy,
which published royal news, has no men-
tion of the queen’s visit or Galli’s letter to
Esposito. Samples of Galli’s handwriting
have been compared to the signature of
the letter sent to Esposito; they do not
match. So if Galli did not write the letter
on behalf of the queen, who did? A pos-
sible clue lies in the name of the letter’s
recipient: Raffaele Esposito Brandi. The
inclusion of this second surname is odd.
Raffaele Esposito’s wife, Maria Giovanna,
had the maiden name of Brandi. Tradi-
tionally, European men do not take their
wives’ last names, so Esposito would not
have used Brandi. There were, however,
two people linked to the pizzeria who
would have: Giovanni and Pasquale Bran-
di, Maria’s nephews who took over the
pizzeria in 1932.
One theory is that the Brandi brothers,
trying to drum up business, crafted thehoax. Having renamed the establishment
the Pizzeria Brandi in 1932, the letter they
allegedly forged had to have a reference
to the Brandi name. Tales of the royals
eating street food were widespread in
Italy. In 1880, a decade before the pizza
letter was allegedly sent, a similar story
appeared in the newspaper Il Bersagliere,
in which Queen Margherita praised a
pizza-maker’s wares.
Esposito’s pizzeria is still in busi-
ness today and is still called Pizzeria
Brandi. The veracity of the pizza Mar-
gherita story is still in question, but in
1989, to mark the 100th anniversary of
the pizza’s naming, a commemorative
plaque was placed on the wall outside.
—Braden PhillipsCHANGING
CUISINESQUEEN MARGHERITA may never
have eaten her namesake pizza
in Naples, as attitudes toward
the dish were somewhat neg-
ative. Journalist Matilde Ser-
ao’s late 19th-century book
The Belly of Naples described
pizza at that time as extremely
cheap fare that “turns yellow
in the sun, eaten by the flies.”
The centrality of tomatoes to
pizza also explains why many
Europeans initially found pizza
unpalatable: A member of the
nightshade family of plants,
the fruit was associated with
poison. In the course of the
1900s, Europeans overcame
their prejudices, clearing the
way for Neapolitan cuisine to
conquer the world.MARGHERITA OF SAVOY (1851-1926),
CONSORT OF UMBERTO I, KING OF ITALY,
PHOTOGRAPHED LATE 19TH CENTURY
PRINT COLLECTOR/ALBUM