Red, White, and Green - The Authentic Margherita

When I first arrived in Milan, the "pizza" I knew was a busy dish, crowded with corn, tuna, and mayonnaise.

So, when the pizza was brought to me, I was honestly taken aback.
Red tomato sauce. White mozzarella. And there, a few leaves of green basil.
That was it.

(Is that... all the toppings?)

The center was slightly moist, and when I put my fork into it, it sank softly. Only the crust was puffed up, with the char from the wood-fired oven creating leopard-like spots.

One bite.
The mozzarella, melted by the heat, stretched out along with the scent of milk. The acidity of the tomato was sharper than I expected, and the green aroma of the basil cut right through it. The dough was fragrant when chewed, with a sweetness of wheat deep within.

It wasn't that anything was missing.
In fact, if you added anything more, everything would just become muddled.

Red, white, and green. The Italian tricolor flag.
Just as the legend says it was dedicated to Queen Margherita long ago, it was complete like a painting, using only those three colors.

Perhaps being authentic is not about adding, but about subtracting.
Because there is confidence in the ingredients, there is no need to hide them.
In a foreign land where I didn't even speak the language, I learned that much from a single pizza.
Even when I tried to ask for Tabasco, it was a world of "What is that?" (laughs)
I later learned that there is something called olio piccante that replaces Tabasco.