This summer marks the 96th birthday of the insalata caprese. A near-century of mozzarella, tomatoes and basil—the salad that sends fresh mozzarella sales spiking in summer. Someone had to invent this beloved combination, and if you believe the story I’m about to recount, the dish was conceived as an act of rebellion. Apologies for linking to an interview in Italian, but it confirms other accounts that the salad was a response to the perceived heaviness of Italian cooking.
What follows is adapted from Cultured: the Epic Story of Cheese, a series of lectures I wrote recently for Audible:
Although the salad’s origin story is not totally solid, few people dispute that the caprese salad comes from the isle of Capri, off the coast of southern Italy, near Naples. The heart of Italian mozzarella production and tomato cultivation is just across the Bay of Naples, in the region of Campania, so Capri makes sense as the birthplace of a salad based on mozzarella and vine-ripe tomatoes.
A hotel menu provides the first written reference to insalata caprese. The Grand Hotel Quisisana is one of Capri’s most elegant, a five-star establishment opened in 1845 and still today welcoming guests accustomed to luxury. In 1926, the hotel hosted a conference on futurism with the noted author of the Futurist Manifesto, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. In keeping with the conference theme, the hotel served a “Dinner of the Future,” which included a rather stark antipasto in the colors of the Italian flag: red tomatoes, white mozzarella, green basil. A drizzle of olive oil, perhaps a pinch of salt. Little did the hotel kitchen know it had created a superstar of the future: the insalata caprese.
Tiny Capri: birthplace of insalata caprese
Conference diners would have certainly gotten the salad’s message. Marinetti had revolutionary ideas about the proper way to eat, ideas that he laid out in a later publication, the Manifesto of Futurist Cooking. He declared war on dried pasta, believing that it sapped energy and virility. He argued for lighter fare, vegetarianism and a rejection of foreign foods. A provocateur whose views became increasingly extreme over time, he would have appreciated the pared-down purity of the insalata caprese.
It appears that the insalata caprese languished until the 1950s, when deposed Egyptian King Farouk, in exile on Capri, asked the hotel for something light to eat. Some cook at the Quisisana, familiar with the hotel’s history, resuscitated the insalata caprese. Capri’s reputation as a resort for the chic and wealthy helped cement the salad’s image as a dish that stylish people ate.
Fast forward to the 21st century. Today, the insalata caprese has spread far and wide, an ambassador for fresh mozzarella and la dolce vita. Too bad that it is so often bastardized or complicated. Here are the elements of an authentic caprese salad, at least in the eyes of most tradition-minded Italians:
Tomatoes: ripe but not too ripe. They should be firm enough to slice, flavorful but not too juicy.
Mozzarella: the moist, fresh style that is packaged in water or whey
Basil: preferably whole leaves; large ones may be torn, small ones left whole. Cutting basil with a knife is strongly discouraged as it instantly oxidizes.
Extra virgin olive oil: the best you have
Sea salt
And that’s it. Basta così. Balsamic vinegar is, not to mince words, all wrong in this salad. It masks the milky, sweet taste of the fresh mozzarella. It ruins the color scheme, too, the vibrant red, white and green intended to mimic the tricolore, the Italian flag. Marinetti, who understood shock value, would be shocked himself by some of the crimes committed against the insalata caprese. Maybe cherry tomatoes and bocconcini (see image above) will offend some purists, too, but I swear there’s not a drop of balsamic.
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