Naples - The birthplace of everyone's favorite food...

The Naples area claims to have invented pizza, and to have the best in the world. There was only one way to prove this outrageous claim; we would have to eat at least 20 pizzas over the next week to get a good cross-sample and have enough evidence to prove this hypothesis true or false. We were up for the task.

It's true, the pizza is unbelievable, everything about it. The Neapolitans love to tell you the reasons why their pizza is the best. Most of the credit goes to Mount Vesuvius, and the extremely rich soil surrounding the volcano. They say that whatever is grown here, tastes better.

The crust is perfect. It's thin, so you don't get filled up on a bunch of dough (and have a shot at not becoming a walking carb). It's amazing that a lot of Italians (who live in Italy) are not completely overweight with the amount of pasta and pizza they eat. First, they walk everywhere. Second, they pace themselves when they eat. And third, they eat thin crust pizza. You can taste the freshness of the flour, and the flavor from a wood oven that probably has been cooking pizzas for 100 years.

The sauce is so sweet, made from their famous San Marzano tomatoes, unlike anything we have ever tasted. The cheese is fresh mozzarella, just globs like the attached photo, not covering the entire pizza. That would never fly with many pizza places in the U.S., they not only cover the top of the pizza (with 5 times the amount of cheese as this one), they also stuff the cheese in the crust!
The famous, and most simple pizza, is the pizza Margherita. It has all the colors of the Italian flag; red sauce, white cheese and crust, and green basil. But why do they call it the Margherita? Here's the story: back in the 1800s, Queen Margherita, wife of Umberto I, King of Italy, decided to try this "peasant food" as it was known at that time. The pizza maker fashioned her pizza after the colors of the Italian flag, to represent the pizza as a true Italian food to the Queen.

The pizzas are never cut, our guess is that the chef thinks it is to beautiful. You wouldn't slice up the Mona Lisa, would you? You can get a pizza with any topping, and much like the staple ingredients, they are all super fresh and tasty. But the pizza Margherita is the way to go, especially if you try to eat 20 of them in 1 week. Trust us, we know.